How to install MySQL gem on Mac OS X

Question

What do I need to install mysql gem on Mac OS X ? I\'m getting error \"failed to build native extensions\".

Answer 1

Some time back I wrote some instructions on my blog on how to do it in 10.6, but I think it's the same in 10.5.

I comes down to this command:

ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- \
  --with-mysql-config=/path/to/mysql_config

but you need to find the real value for /path/to/mysql_config. My blog post has a few tips, but there's one very important thing: you must have installed MySQL with headers. The official .pkg installer from MySQL doesn't IIRC. The best thing to do is to install MySQL with Homebrew (in the post I use examples from a MacPorts install, but that's because Homebrew wasn't mature when I wrote it).

If you install MySQL with Homebrew mysql_config will be located at /usr/local/bin/mysql_config and if you install it with MacPorts it will be at /opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysql_config.

I concur with the other answer that suggest that you install the mysql2 gem instead of mysql. I think the command above should work for mysql2 too.