How can I fix charlock_holmes gem so it works on opensuse Tumbleweed?

I can install charlock_holmes gem on opensuse, trying to open it up in irb quickly, I get this:

> irb
2.3.0 :001 > require 'charlock_holmes'
LoadError: /home/wpostma/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/charlock_holmes-0.7.3/lib/charlock_holmes/charlock_holmes.so: 
undefined symbol: _ZTIN6icu_538ByteSinkE - /home/wpostma/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/charlock_holmes-0.7.3/lib/charlock_holmes/charlock_holmes.so
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.3.0/lib64/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.3.0/lib64/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/charlock_holmes-0.7.3/lib/charlock_holmes.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.3.0/lib64/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:127:in `require'
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.3.0/lib64/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:127:in `rescue in require'
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.3.0/lib64/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:40:in `require'
        from (irb):1
        from /home/wpostma/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.3.0/bin/irb:11:in `<main>'
2.3.0 :002 >

It looks to me like maybe something in charlock_holmes is incompatible with the libicu version inside tumbleweed.

I'm using ruby installed with rvm, and purging all my gemsets and reinstalling does not fix it. Any other ways to get charlock_holmes to work? Maybe I need to install a special copy of libicu (earlier, older) and point the gem at it?

Solution

Either of these works. For me the bundle config option works better.

This is a direct command to install the gem, directing it towards the correct libicu version:

gem install charlock_holmes -- --with-icu-dir=/usr/local

This is a command to tell which ever ruby project I install later on this system, will get gems installed by bundler to just work instead of breaking:

bundle config build.charlock_holmes "--with-icu-dir=/usr/local" --global

Since I'm using rvm the above bundle configuration seems to be "global" to that rvm environment only.

In my case, the bundle config is helpful as a large series of actions that would have otherwise failed (installing gems, and bootstrapping a large rails application) just worked.