shell command failed

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Oct 20, 2012, at 17:52, Felix Emil Drud wrote:

> I was trying to install pkgconfig libao, by doing this:
> 
> sudo port install pkgconfig libao
> Password:
> --->  Computing dependencies for pkgconfig
> --->  Dependencies to be installed: libiconv gperf
> --->  Configuring gperf
> Error: Target org.macports.configure returned: configure failure: shell command failed (see log for details)
> Error: Failed to install gperf
> Log for gperf is at: /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_devel_gperf/gperf/main.log
> Error: The following dependencies were not installed: libiconv gperf
> Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.
> To report a bug, see <http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets>
> 
> I keep getting the "shell command failed" error whenever i try to install anything, using macports.

"shell command failed" tells us almost nothing other than that "something" went wrong. MacPorts runs shell commands all the time. To learn anything, we must know *what* shell command failed, and with *what* error message. The aforementioned main.log file might tell us more.

> I tried searching for the error and found a mailing list archive where it said that i should try reinstalling db46:

That's probably not relevant to your issue.

> sudo port -f uninstall db46
> sudo port clean --all db46
> sudo port install db46
> 
> I did this but received the following error, when executing the last command:
> http://pastebin.com/i4ZN6w1S

This log says:

:info:configure configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
:info:configure See `config.log' for more details.

Seeing that config.log file might tell us more about why it failed.