Back to Basics
Posted by rbpasker on January 5, 2008
I’m testing an unreleased web service which requires mod_python. Because mod_python comes as source, I had to build it for OS X 10.5.
Of course, configure failed miserably with the brilliant:
checking for C compiler default output file name… configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
Searching the web for how to fix configure problems, I found a suggestion to compile something simple, to see if gcc is installed correctly:
% cat test.c
#include <studio.h>
int main (int argc, char* argv[]) {
printf(”hello world\n”);
return 0;
}
% gcc test.c
This also failed.
I figured that since I hadn’t done any development on this machine since 2004 or so, it was time to reinstall Apple’s Xcode.
Once I reinstalled Xcode, test.c compiled perfectly, and configure ran without a hitch.
After 30+ years of programming, the same techniques still work: get the simplest possible thing to break, then fix that.
