From: Matthew Smillie Date: 2005-11-10T07:20:15+09:00 Subject: Re: How to install something on MacOS X? On Nov 9, 2005, at 14:11, pete boardman wrote: > So far I've been learning Ruby (1.8.2 as pre-installed on Mac/ > Tiger) without any installation or command-line worries, but now > I've decided to investigate a library called 'ruby/graphviz'. I > downloaded it but I don't know how to install it. (There are no > instructions, but then that might be because there's a standard way > of doing it...) > > I've got these files/directories: > > /ruby-graphviz/lib/ > /ruby-graphviz/IMPORTANT > /ruby-graphviz/COPYING > /ruby-graphviz/AUTHORS > /ruby-graphviz/extconf.rb > /ruby-graphviz/tests/ > /ruby-graphviz/README > > Only the extconf.rb file looks like it might do something re > installation, but when run it says: > > can't find header files for ruby. > > Suggestions welcomed! You'll need to do the following to install: 1. install the developer tools (the cause of your immediate error, I expect) You can get them from the Tiger DVD, or as a download from Apple with a (free) registration to their developer site. 2. To install graphviz, do as follows: ruby extconf.rb make sudo make install You're right thinking this is a fairly standard way of doing things, but most libraries do come with slightly more explicit instructions. Once you've done that, you might consider installing a new ruby, either from source, or using fink (fink.sf.net) or darwinports (darwinports.opendarwin.org) if they're more convenient. The Ruby that ships with Tiger is very slightly broken, and installing the current stable version could save you from some mysterious headaches in the future. There's also a fair number of ruby packages available on both systems (though not always the most up-to-date versions). I'm fairly sure that some functions of ruby-graphviz rely on graphviz already being installed on the system. You can get it through fink/ darwinports as well, I imagine. hope this helps, matthew smillie.