Error - “gem install rails” - libxml2 is missing

Question

I\'ve been working through the Rails install instructions (http://railsapps.github.io/installrubyonrails-mac.html) and everything was okay up until I got to gem instal

Answer 1

This worked for me (based on this Github thread):

gem install nokogiri -- --use-system-libraries --with-xml2-include=/usr/include/libxml2 --with-xml2-lib=/usr/lib/

As a note, my issue was:

...
checking for main() in -llzma... yes
checking for xmlParseDoc() in libxml/parser.h... no
checking for xmlParseDoc() in -lxml2... no
checking for xmlParseDoc() in -llibxml2... no
-----
libxml2 is missing.  Please locate mkmf.log to investigate how it is failing.
-----
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of necessary
libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more details.  You may
need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
    --with-opt-dir
    --without-opt-dir
    --with-opt-include
    --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
    --with-opt-lib
    --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
    --with-make-prog
    --without-make-prog
    --srcdir=.
    --curdir
    --ruby=/Users/seanshadmand/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.1.1/bin/ruby
    --help
    --clean
    --use-system-libraries
    --enable-static
    --disable-static
    --with-zlib-dir
    --without-zlib-dir
    --with-zlib-include
    --without-zlib-include=${zlib-dir}/include
    --with-zlib-lib
    --without-zlib-lib=${zlib-dir}/lib
    --enable-cross-build
    --disable-cross-build
    --with-xml2lib
    --without-xml2lib
    --with-libxml2lib
    --without-libxml2lib

To see why this extension failed to ...

extconf failed, exit code 1

Answer 2

Try using this:

sudo gem install rails -- --use-system-libraries --with-xml=/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/

Answer 3

I had the same problem when I try:

gem install libxml-ruby -v '3.0.0

Run the following solved the issue on Mac for me:

gem update --system

xcode-select --install

gem install nokogiri

See installing nokogiri for more details

Answer 4

For some reason nokogiri build process for libxml2 will misplace build version.

Instead of lib/ it will to go lib64/. Nokogiri will then look for it in the wrong directory.

More info here: https://github.com/sparklemotion/nokogiri/issues/1334

Answer 5

You don't have the required library, and it is so easy to google solution:

 brew install libxml2

Answer 6

It worked for me as Simar has mentioned.

sudo gem install rails -- --use-system-libraries --with-xml=/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/

And if you were having troubles install it on Mac please check out here. https://gorails.com/setup/osx/10.11-el-capitan

Also if you could not find /usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/ existing, you may need to homebrew it.

brew install libxml2

If you are installing it on a newly installed OS X EL CAPITAN as I do, you probably find homebrew telling you that libxml2 is installed already and brew will not replace the existing libxml2 with it's newly installed one which is at /usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/, which is the one we really should link the libraries to. Since the system default libxml2 would not link successfully.