http://xkcd.com/303/

While updating a buildout, Pound would not compile anymore. “All” I did was update it from version 2.4.4 to 2.5.

When running the buildout, which uses the plone.recipe.pound by the way, it ended with this:

An internal error occured due to a bug in either zc.buildout or in a
recipe being used:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/private/var/folders/jt/jtv7gTB4GgqMNrztzYnFoU+++TI/-Tmp-/tmpWzlOWE/zc.buildout-1.5.0b2-py2.4.egg/zc/buildout/buildout.py", line 1660, in main
  File "/private/var/folders/jt/jtv7gTB4GgqMNrztzYnFoU+++TI/-Tmp-/tmpWzlOWE/zc.buildout-1.5.0b2-py2.4.egg/zc/buildout/buildout.py", line 532, in install
  File "/private/var/folders/jt/jtv7gTB4GgqMNrztzYnFoU+++TI/-Tmp-/tmpWzlOWE/zc.buildout-1.5.0b2-py2.4.egg/zc/buildout/buildout.py", line 1204, in _call
  File "/Users/mark/projects/prettigpersoneel/svn_trunk/eggs/plone.recipe.pound-0.5.5-py2.4.egg/plone/recipe/pound/build.py", line 78, in install
    installed = CMMIRecipe.install(self)
  File "/Users/mark/projects/prettigpersoneel/svn_trunk/eggs/zc.recipe.cmmi-1.3.1-py2.4.egg/zc/recipe/cmmi/__init__.py", line 159, in install
    self.cmmi(dest)
  File "/Users/mark/projects/prettigpersoneel/svn_trunk/eggs/zc.recipe.cmmi-1.3.1-py2.4.egg/zc/recipe/cmmi/__init__.py", line 187, in cmmi
    system("make")
  File "/Users/mark/projects/prettigpersoneel/svn_trunk/eggs/zc.recipe.cmmi-1.3.1-py2.4.egg/zc/recipe/cmmi/__init__.py", line 32, in system
    raise SystemError("Failed", c)
SystemError: ('Failed', 'make')

Looking a bit further back, I saw this:

pound.h:188:2: error: #error "You have libpcreposix, but the header files are missing. Use --disable-pcreposix"

And before that:

checking pcreposix.h usability... no
checking pcreposix.h presence... no
checking for pcreposix.h... no
checking pcre/pcreposix.h usability... no
checking pcre/pcreposix.h presence... no
checking for pcre/pcreposix.h... no

Okay, now we're getting somewhere… Apparently I had to make sure pcreposix.h was available. However, I had already installed pcre and pcre++ via MacPorts. Google also didn't turn up any hints on where to get the needed header file.

Luckiliy I remembered that I had installed Homebrew a while back. A quick

$ brew install pcre

solved my problem: pound compiled and the buildout ran without problems again.