Quick Ruby on Rails, MySQL gem on OSX tip

After having some new engineers join (we are still hiring) and having the same problem popup, I wanted to share a quick tip on getting your MySQL gem up and running on the latest OSX software/hardware.

Install MySQL and the mysql gem on OSX 10.6

First grab mysql-server 5.1. For Mac OS 10.6, make sure you get the 64-bit DMG.

Ensure you have xcode installed from the extra CD that comes in the box. Now install the mysql gem. You'll need to specify both that it's 64-bit and the location of the config file.


sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -v 2.7 -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

It should install then without any complaints. If you see native compilation errors it either means you have the 32bit version installed or MySQL 5.5.