How to Fix the Iconv Require Error in Ruby 1.9 and RVM

This post was copied from exceptions.wordpress.com with minor updates.

So you are working with RVM / Rails 3 / Ruby 1.9.2 and you keep on getting the following error:

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'require': no such file to load – iconv (LoadError)

To fix the issue, perform the following steps:

1. Install readline using rvm: rvm install readline rvm package install readline
2. Now install iconv by executing: rvm install iconv rvm package install iconv
3. If you already have a version of Ruby 1.9 installed, we need to remove it by executing:

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$ rvm remove 1.9.2

1. The final step is to re-install the version of ruby:

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$ rvm install --trace 1.9.2 -C --with-iconv-dir=$HOME/.rvm/usr

Now to test that it worked:

1. Change to the ruby version you installed: rvm use 1.9.2
2. Check you are on the right version of ruby:

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$ ruby -v
ruby 1.9.2p180 (2011-02-18 revision 30909) [x86_64-darwin10.6.0]

1. Start a new irb session
2. Now you should be able to require ‘iconv’ and get a ‘true’ result

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ruby-1.9.2-p180 :001 > require 'iconv'
=> true

Now you should be good to go!