GCC fatal error: stdio.h: No such file or directory

Question

I'm trying to compile a program in C on OS X 10.9 with GCC 4.9 (experimental). For some reason, I'm getting the following error at compile time:

gcc: fatal error: stdio.h: No such file or directory

I then tried a simple Hello World program:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    printf("Hello, world!");
    return 0;
}

Again, upon running gcc -o ~/hello ~/hello.c, I got the same error. I'm using an experimental version of gcc, but it seems implausible that there would be a release which generated errors upon importing stdio. What could be causing this issue, and how can it be fixed?

Answer 1

macOS

I had this problem too (encountered through Macports compilers). Previous versions of Xcode would let you install command line tools through xcode/Preferences, but xcode5 doesn't give a command line tools option in the GUI, that so I assumed it was automatically included now. Try running this command:

xcode-select --install

If you see an error message that developer tools are already installed (and still header files can't be found), wipe out any existing one to do a fresh installation:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

Ubuntu

(as per this answer)

sudo apt-get install libc6-dev

Alpine Linux

(as per this comment)

apk add libc-dev

Answer 2

Mac OS Mojave

The accepted answer no longer works. When running the command xcode-select --install it tells you to use "Software Update" to install updates.

In this link is the updated method:

Open a Terminal and then:

cd /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/
open macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg

This will open an installation Wizard.

Update 12/2019

After updating to Mojave 10.15.1 it seems that using xcode-select --install works as intended.

Answer 3

ubuntu users:

sudo apt-get install libc6-dev

specially ruby developers that have problem installing gem install json -v '1.8.2' on their VMs

Answer 4

I know my case is rare, but I'll still add it here for someone who troubleshoots it later. I had a Linux Kernel module target in my Makefile and I tried to compile my user space program together with the kernel module that doesn't have stdio. Making it a separate target solved the problem.

Answer 5

I had the same problem. I installed "XCode: development tools" from the app store and it fixed the problem for me.

I think this link will help: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12&ls=1

Credit to Yann Ramin for his advice. I think there is a better solution with links, but this was easy and fast.

Good luck!