Installing sqlite headers on ubuntu (sqlite3.h not found)

Posted by Wes in Ruby, Ruby on Rails

Mar
5

I was setting up Integrity for the first time and ran into this on my server when bundling gems:

~$ bundle install
...
Installing do_sqlite3 (0.10.0) from rubygems repository at
  http://gemcutter.org/ with native extensions
  /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/installer.rb:482:in
  `build_extensions':
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
  (Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError)

/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb
checking for sqlite3.h... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
...

The key is the line: checking for sqlite3.h... no
The do_sqlite3 gem gets compiled natively, but the development headers weren’t installed on the system and so the compilation won’t work.

Install them:

~$ sudo apt-get install sqlite3
~$ sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-dev

Then, re-bundle:

~$ bundle install

7 Comments to “Installing sqlite headers on ubuntu (sqlite3.h not found)”

October 10, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Corindiano says:

Freakin’ life saver! Thanks a bunch!
November 20, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Matt says:

Just getting started w/ Rails and your hint got me going again. Thanks!!
December 23, 2010 at 4:02 pm
skyw00lker says:

Thanks alot for sharing, saved me some time :)
March 15, 2011 at 4:08 pm
ranska says:

Thanks guy. Just what i need .
November 15, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Rick says:

This can also be a problem of missing gcc.
During the gem build, it does a check for the header by compiling little program containing one line:
#include
And if that fails, it seems to assume the header is missing. It doesn’t take into account that gcc could be missing, causing the error. So if the article doesn’t help, make sure you have gcc installed.
November 15, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Rick says:

In my above comment, the #include line should say
#include “sqlite3.h”, where the double quotes are actually angle brackets (which must have borked the comment system).
December 8, 2011 at 9:19 am
Barbariandude says:

Ran into this issue installing diaspora. Thanks!