What is mkmf.log and why does it keep showing up in my app root?

Question

Have an app that uses git for version control. A file called mkmf.log keeps showing up in the app root, somewhat randomly. What is it?

It contains:

find_executable: checking for git... -------------------- yes

--------------------

Relevant info from ls:

$ ls -lah | grep mk
-rw-r--r--@  1 kyle  staff    85B Dec  2 15:44 mkmf.log

Answer 1

mkmf.log is an artifact of something you're building. It sounds like you're building a ruby project with some native code.

Answer 2

I've been seeing this recently too with a Ruby on Rails application I'm working on. It looks to be related to some native gems. Your best bet is to add it to your .gitignore file.

Answer 3

Some googling shows it may be capistrano related - and indeed it's showing up for me, too, everytime I run capistrano for deployment.

Answer 4

It's capistrano using mkmf to find the git executable. Cap was changed to use mkmf to better support windows, but the change has been rolled back due to the creation of the mkmf.log file. See: https://capistrano.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8716/tickets/127