Build failure on 1.9.3: ruby/thread.h: No such file or directory

[olleolleolle]

This issue is about the build failure in https://travis-ci.org/colszowka/simplecov/jobs/534519517

Details

There was a build failure putting ffi together in a Travis build:

Build failure message

current directory:
/home/travis/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p551/gems/ffi-1.11.0/ext/ffi_c
/home/travis/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p551/bin/ruby -r
./siteconf20190519-6015-12z6hsq.rb extconf.rb
checking for ffi_call() in -lffi... yes
checking for ffi_closure_alloc()... yes
checking for shlwapi.h... no
checking for rb_thread_call_without_gvl()... yes
checking for ruby_native_thread_p()... yes
checking for ruby_thread_has_gvl_p()... no
checking for ffi_prep_cif_var()... yes
checking for ffi_raw_call()... yes
checking for ffi_prep_raw_closure()... yes
creating extconf.h
creating Makefile
current directory:
/home/travis/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p551/gems/ffi-1.11.0/ext/ffi_c
make  clean
current directory:
/home/travis/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p551/gems/ffi-1.11.0/ext/ffi_c
make
compiling Call.c
Call.c:46:25: fatal error: ruby/thread.h: No such file or directory
 #include <ruby/thread.h>
                         ^
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Call.o] Error 1
make failed, exit code 2
Gem files will remain installed in
/home/travis/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p551/gems/ffi-1.11.0 for inspection.
Results logged to
/home/travis/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p551/extensions/x86_64-linux/1.9.1/ffi-1.11.0/gem_make.out
An error occurred while installing ffi (1.11.0), and Bundler cannot
continue.
Make sure that `gem install ffi -v '1.11.0' --source 'https://rubygems.org/'`
succeeds before bundling.
In ruby_19.gemfile:
  aruba was resolved to 0.14.9, which depends on
    ffi

Proposed Solution

Either: add a check for "does thread.h exist here?"

Related: eventmachine/eventmachine#508 checks for thread.h in extconf.rb.

Or: Pin to ffi-1.10.0 as a workaround in projects. Thanks, @bilcus for finding this.

Related: FFI's #683 removed 1.9 and 1.8 compatibility code.

[olleolleolle]

@larskanis Does this description explain what I mean?

[bilcus]

Can confirm that this error was introduced in ffi-1.11.0. Pin to ffi-1.10.0 as a workaround.

[larskanis]

Ruby-ffi is no longer compatible to ruby-1.9.3. I'll release a new ffi version which clarifies this in the gemspec. See also #699

[pohmelie]

@larskanis
If you release new version, then 1.11.0 still will fail on installation in case of dependency. I mean, if I want to install lets say fpm on ruby 1.9.x, then package manager will still download and use 1.11.0. Am I right?

[larskanis]

@pohmelie You can try it out now. On ruby-1.9.3-p448 rubygems-2.1.5 isn't smart enough to pick an older version, but complains about the required ruby version of ffi-1.11.1. However bundler-1.17.3 automatically switched to ffi-1.10.0 after I yanked ffi-1.11.0.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope this fixes the issue for you...