[SOLVED] emerging some packages including glibc got broken

[ssvb]

When trying to emerge glibc, it fails with the folowing error message (yes, and I was unable to upgrade to glibc 2.4 when it got released):
...
libc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/soversions.mk
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/glibc-2.4'
make[1]: Entering directory `/var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/glibc-2.4'
/bin/install -c -m 644 bits/types.h /usr/include/bits/types.h
ACCESS DENIED unlink: /usr/include/bits/types.h
/bin/install: cannot remove `/usr/include/bits/types.h': Permission denied
./scripts/mkinstalldirs /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/gnu
mkdir /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/gnu
gawk -f scripts/lib-names.awk /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/soversions.i > /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/gnu/lib-names.T
/bin/sh scripts/move-if-change /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/gnu/lib-names.T /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/gnu/lib-names.h
touch /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/gnu/lib-names.stmp
/bin/install -c -m 644 bits/waitstatus.h /usr/include/bits/waitstatus.h
ACCESS DENIED unlink: /usr/include/bits/waitstatus.h
/bin/install: cannot remove `/usr/include/bits/waitstatus.h': Permission denied
rm -f /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/stamp.o; > /var/tmp/portage/glibc-2.4-r3/work/build-default-i686-pc-linux-gnu-nptl/stamp.o
...

Looks like there is something wrong with my system. Did anybody encounter anything like this? Is there any way to fix it without reinstalling?

[didymos]

What do you get if you do ls -l on those two headers?
_________________
Thomas S. Howard

[ssvb]

Found out what caused the problem. Not only glibc did not emerge successfully, but a number of other packages, 'util-linux' for example. Compilation failed with the error message about some macro undefined.

After investigating the problem and testing I found that I had added a line 'export C_INCLUDE_PATH=$C_INCLUDE_PATH:/some_directory' into my .bash_profile file some time ago. It expanded into ':/some_directory' and resulted in the directory with the file being compiled to have higher priority than system include directories. So it any project has a header file with the name matching some system header file, it got included instead. For example if you add empty 'stdio.h' file into some project tree and try to '#include <stdio.h>', local header got included.

But I'm still worried about my local environment variables being able to break portage, is it expected behaviour? All that I did to get this problem was to login as a user (having broken C_INCLUDE_PATH defined), and run:
# su
# emerge -uD --newuse world