'gem install roo' - failing in Windows Vista

[Rick]

I am a relative newcomer to Ruby (but love it so far). I would really
like to use 'roo' for one of the tasks I need to do involving Excel
spreadsheets. But the gem install fails.

The failure happens when trying to install libxml-ruby. I am prompted
to make a choice:

1. libxml-ruby 1.1.3 (x86-mswin32-60)
2. libxml-ruby 1.1.3 (ruby)
3. Skip this gem
4. Cancel installation

Both (1) and (2) fail - differently.

First I select (1) rake complains about with: "Don't know how to build
task 'extension'". I looked at Rakefile in the directory the error
message pointed to and it didn't seem to have an 'extension' task.

Next I tried (2). There is an error about not being able to build
extensions due to a lack of libraries, shown below.

ERROR: While executing gem ...
(Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError)
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

ruby extconf.rb install roo
checking for socket() in socket.lib... no
checking for gethostbyname() in nsl.lib... no
checking for atan() in m.lib... yes
checking for inflate() in z.lib... no
checking for inflate() in zlib.lib... no
checking for inflate() in zlib1.lib... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for
more
details. You may need configuration options.... <a whole bunch
of options followed>

I do have cygwin installed on the machine and zlib was installed along
with it; but there may be a versioning problem that I am not aware of.

Any hints on how to get past this hurdle will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-rick

[Thomas Preymesser]

Hello Rick,

On Sep 24, 8:43 pm, Rick <commo_n...@emc.com> wrote:
> I am a relative newcomer to Ruby (but love it so far).  I would really
> like to use 'roo' for one of the tasks I need to do involving Excel
> spreadsheets.  But the gem install fails.
>
> The failure happens when trying to install libxml-ruby.  I am prompted
> to make a choice:

This seems to be a problem with the libxml-ruby gem.
I really don't have any idea what to do in this case (I'm using linux)
but i think it's a problem with missing libraries. If no one in this
list knows the answer, try to get help at the libxml-ruby pages:
<http://libxml.rubyforge.org/>

-Thomas

[Alister Scott]

Hi Rick,

Can you first do a:

gem update --system

Then try uninstalling and reinstalling roo.

gem uninstall roo
gem install roo

See if that helps.

Cheers,

Alister Scott
Brisbane, Australia
Watir Wiki Master: http://watir.com
Blog: http://watirmelon.com
Google: http://www.google.com/profiles/alister.scott
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/alisterscott

[Rick]

Scott and Thomas - thanks for the replies.

I tried what Scott laid out and everything went without a hitch. Plus
I learned a good lesson for the future.

Now back to having fun!!

Cheers,
-rick