Why won't bundler install the json 1.7.4 gem on OS X 10.8?

Question

I'm on OS X 10.8 with XCode 4.4, Ruby 1.9.3, and Rails 3.2.

When I clone my rails project from git and run:

bundle install

I get:

Installing json (1.7.4) Errno::EPERM: Operation not permitted - /Users/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/json-1.7.4/.gitignore An error occurred while installing json (1.7.4), and Bundler cannot continue. Make sure that gem install json -v '1.7.4' succeeds before bundling.

Then I try:

gem install json -v '1.7.4'

and get:

ERROR: While executing gem ... (Errno::EPERM) Operation not permitted - /Users/scalessec/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/json-1.7.4/.gitignore

Okay. Permissions issue, right? Let's try:

sudo gem install json -v '1.7.4'

No go. Here's what I get:

Building native extensions. This could take a while... ERROR: Error installing json: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/Users/myuser/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/bin/ruby extconf.rb creating Makefile

make compiling generator.c make: /usr/bin/gcc-4.2: Permission denied make: * [generator.o] Error 1

What the heck?

Answer 1

I am not sure, but I upgraded to OS X 10.8 2 days ago (from Lion, where my Rails configuration worked fine). And I had the same JSON 1.7.4 issue.

Eventually, I solved the problem by noticing that Xcode's command line tools were NOT installed (but they were on OS X 10.7!). I just reinstalled CLI tools in Xcode and that JSON 1.7.4 issue disappeared.

Also just in case it's helpful, check out this guide: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-riding-a-mountain-lion

Answer 2

Thanks to aabulkhairov for his solution.

Here's one for anyone having the same symptom but still running OS X Lion

I was able to updating Xcode to 4.4 from the App Store, then using XCode > Preferences > Downloads to install CLI tools; this resolved the problem. The new XCode is compatible with Lion, and my Rails app is running as expected.

I think I got into this state because the previous version of XCode 4.2.1, installed from the App Store, had displaced my even older version downloaded from developer.apple.com -- that's likely where I lost the CLI tools. Since that time, I apparently never needed to compile a gem with native extensions again.