# Errors while updating gems

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/errors-while-updating-gems/195001>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [September 15, 2010, 7:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/errors-while-updating-gems/195001 "2010-09-15T07:27:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![erubin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/82dd89/32.png) [@erubin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/erubin)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 7:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/errors-while-updating-gems/195001/1 "2010-09-15T07:27:51Z")

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I’m new to Ruby, so please forgive me if this seems a tad bit obvious 🙂

While updating my gems so I could get Rails 3.0, I got many of the  
following errors (as in this example, it’s sqlite):

Updating sqlite3-ruby  
Building native extensions. This could take a while…  
ERROR: Error installing sqlite3-ruby:  
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby  
extconf.rb  
mkmf.rb can’t find header files for ruby at  
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/ruby.h

Gem files will remain installed in  
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.3.1 for inspection.  
Results logged to  
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.3.1/ext/sqlite3/gem\_make.out

* * *

Everything relating to Rails seems to work as far as I can see… for  
now…

However, I’m just wondering what these mean and why I would get them?

Thanks!

Best,

Eric

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erubin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/82dd89/32.png) [@erubin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/erubin)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 9:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/errors-while-updating-gems/195001/2 "2010-09-15T09:30:39Z")

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On Sep 14, 2010, at 22:27 , Eric R. wrote:

> /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby  
> extconf.rb  
> mkmf.rb can’t find header files for ruby at  
> /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/ruby.h

Quick preliminary: do you have apple’s developer tools installed? They  
come free with your machine … usually on the Extras DVD. You can also  
download it (big 1 gig download) for free from [developer.apple.com](http://developer.apple.com).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erubin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/82dd89/32.png) [@erubin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/erubin)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/errors-while-updating-gems/195001/3 "2010-09-16T01:00:21Z")

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Ryan D. wrote:

> On Sep 14, 2010, at 22:27 , Eric R. wrote:
> 
> > /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby  
> > extconf.rb  
> > mkmf.rb can’t find header files for ruby at  
> > /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/ruby.h
> 
> Quick preliminary: do you have apple’s developer tools installed? They  
> come free with your machine … usually on the Extras DVD. You can also  
> download it (big 1 gig download) for free from [developer.apple.com](http://developer.apple.com).

Good preliminary. I installed Apple’s developer tools and problem  
solved!

You can now close this ticket 😉