RVM: trouble installing libyaml package on Snow Leopard - ruby

Question

I'm using RVM 1.13.4 on Mac OS 10.6.8, with XCode 3.2.6. The upgrade to Snow Leopard was fairly recent, and I believe that's when I started having this problem.
When I run rvm pkg install libyaml, I get the following error:
Fetching yaml-0.1.4.tar.gz to /Users/tsherif/.rvm/archives
Extracting yaml-0.1.4.tar.gz to /Users/tsherif/.rvm/src
Prepare yaml in /Users/tsherif/.rvm/src/yaml-0.1.4.
Configuring yaml in /Users/tsherif/.rvm/src/yaml-0.1.4.
Compiling yaml in /Users/tsherif/.rvm/src/yaml-0.1.4.
Error running 'make ', please read /Users/tsherif/.rvm/log/yaml/make.log
Database file /Users/tsherif/.rvm/config/packages does not exist.
Not sure what the story is with config/packages. The make.log file contains the following:
[2012-05-06 05:37:14] make
make all-recursive
Making all in include
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
Making all in src
/bin/sh ../libtool --tag=CC --mode=compile /usr/bin/gcc-4.2 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.. -I../include -g -O2 -MT api.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/api.Tpo -c -o api.lo api.c
../libtool: line 787: X--tag=CC: command not found
../libtool: line 820: libtool: ignoring unknown tag : command not found
../libtool: line 787: X--mode=compile: command not found
../libtool: line 953: *** Warning: inferring the mode of operation is deprecated.: command not found
../libtool: line 954: *** Future versions of Libtool will require --mode=MODE be specified.: command not found
../libtool: line 984: libtool: warning: cannot infer operation mode from `/usr/bin/gcc-4.2': No such file or directory
../libtool: line 7011: libtool: you must specify a MODE: command not found
../libtool: line 7012: Try `libtool --help' for more information.: command not found
make[2]: *** [api.lo] Error 1
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [all] Error 2
It seems like the shell is trying to execute arguments to libtool as commands before passing them to libtool? The commands aren't found so the string command not found is passed to libtool, which then spews out a bunch of error output that sh tries to execute and, of course, fails to do. Does it maybe have something to do with the Xs that seem to be added to the --tag and --mode options? That's my best guess, anyway, given my limited understanding of libtool and make.
I've tried adding the following options, based on similar questions I've seen on SO, but to no avail:
--with-gcc=clang
--enable-shared
I've also tried installing libyaml separately (without RVM) using both MacPorts and compiling from source, but neither worked. And oddly enough, if I install Psych as a gem after installing Ruby, there's no problem (but I do want it compiled with Ruby).

Answer 1

Have you tried installing with Homebrew? It makes most dependency packages very easy to install, then run brew install libyaml.