George MacKerron: code blog

The secret to getting the MySQL gem to install and function with Ruby 1.9.1/1.9.2 on Snow Leopard is:

• Install MySQL using the 64-bit .DMG package installer from dev.mysql.com
• Install Ruby using RVM (that’s Ruby 1.9.2 or 1.9.1-p378 — at the time of writing the latest 1.9.1, p429, is buggy)
• Add these to lines to ~/.bash_login or ~/.bashrc:

export PATH="/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH"
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/mysql/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"

• In a new shell (Terminal window), type gem install mysql as normal.

I’m posting this mainly as a record for myself, having wasted a lot of time in the past trying strange incantations from comments on various other blogs posts.