/usr/bin/gcc-4.2: No such file or directory. error. symlink fix doesn't work

Question

I'm trying to upgrade my rails 3.2.3 app. I've updated the gemfile to gem 'rails', '3.2.11' and ran bundle update rails but got the following error:

    Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /Users/Arel/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-head/bin/ruby extconf.rb 
creating Makefile

make
compiling generator.c
make: /usr/bin/gcc-4.2: No such file or directory
make: *** [generator.o] Error 1


Gem files will remain installed in /Users/Arel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-head/gems/json-1.7.6 for inspection.
Results logged to /Users/Arel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-head/gems/json-1.7.6/ext/json/ext/generator/gem_make.out
An error occured while installing json (1.7.6), and Bundler cannot continue.
Make sure that `gem install json -v '1.7.6'` succeeds before bundling.

So I tried the solution that I found everywhere, to create a symlink using the command:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.2

but that just returns the error:

ln: /usr/bin/gcc-4.2: File exists

I don't know a lot about using the terminal to navigate around OSX, so I'm kind of struggling here. Any ideas?

Answer 1

/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 could already be a symlink, but a broken one that points to a nonexistent file.