Re: Building on OSX without package managers

[Richard Campbell]

On Jan 24, 2011, at 10:03 PM, Ben Abbott wrote:

> On Jan 24, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Richard Campbell wrote:
> 
>> On Jan 24, 2011, at 8:05 PM, Ben Abbott wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jan 24, 2011, at 6:24 PM, Richard Campbell wrote:
>>> 
>>>> All,
>>>> 
>>>> My coworkers and I rely heavily on Octave.app from octave.sourceforge.net 
>>>> and I am becoming concerned that it's not being actively maintained. I am 
>>>> willing to take over the building of Octave.app from source but I'm having 
>>>> trouble with it and I want to know what the state of the art is for 
>>>> compiling Octave on OSX. 
>>>> 
>>>> I need a solution that doesn't require a third party package manager like 
>>>> Fink or Macports at either compile or runtime. I don't mind installing 
>>>> compile-time dependencies on one machine, but once I compile it I'd like 
>>>> to be able to package it up and run it on other Macs (like the existing 
>>>> Octave.app). Can Octave.app be built easily once Octave builds?
>>>> 
>>>> I've seen mention of a Readme.MacOS file on this board. Neither the 
>>>> current stable or testing source distributions from 
>>>> http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/download.html have this file included 
>>>> in them although I found the one at 
>>>> http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/file/e0e50f48df37/README.MacOS and 
>>>> it still says "TODO - add instructions" under "Building without a package 
>>>> manager".
>>>> 
>>>> I would very much like to be able to address variables larger than 2 GB on 
>>>> my machine with >>2 GB of RAM, so at a bare minimum I'd like to be able to 
>>>> compile Octave for myself with --enable-64.
>>>> 
>>>> Some nitpicks about what I've seen so far in trying to compile Octave from 
>>>> source:
>>>> - Why shouldn't the included versions of autoconf, automake, readline, sed 
>>>> &c. be sufficient for compiling Octave?
>>>> - I don't want Aquaterm to be the default, as X11 does just fine and is 
>>>> installed by default on all new Macs, and Aquaterm at first glance hasn't 
>>>> been maintained in about 5 years.
>>>> - The recommended Fortran compiler, which I already use for other things, 
>>>> gives the first 'configure' error when I try to build Octave from source. 
>>>> It's a different error wither or not I try --enable-64, but they're both 
>>>> about integer size.
>>>> 
>>>> R Campbell
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Welcome to the list.
>>> 
>>> I've been working on the README.MacOS file, and would greatly appreciate 
>>> help in completing the TODO's. I hope to update the current version soon. 
>>> Unfortunately, the update will  not include instructions on how to build 
>>> Octave *without* Fink or Macports.
>>> 
>>> In the past, Thomas Trieichl had volunteered his time and effort to provide 
>>> binary releases for MacOS. I've cc'd him in the event he would like to 
>>> comment.
>>> 
>>> It's a bit dated, but in 2007 Thomas provided some documentation for how he 
>>> built the app for MacOS.
>>> 
>>>     
>>> https://mailman.cae.wisc.edu/pipermail/octave-maintainers/2007-May/006648.html
>>> 
>>> Today things will be more difficult as MacOS 10.6 runs both 32 and 64 bit 
>>> apps. This requires some special attention to ensure that the proper 
>>> libraries are linked to. As a result, Thomas' instructions will not likely 
>>> be sufficient, but should provide a good starting point.
>>> 
>>> Michael Godfrey offered some additional information back in January.
>>> 
>>>     
>>> https://mailman.cae.wisc.edu/pipermail/octave-maintainers/2010-January/018352.html
>>> 
>>> In the last few days Jarno Rajahalme also added some advice for building 
>>> for 64bit.
>>> 
>>>     
>>> https://mailman.cae.wisc.edu/pipermail/octave-maintainers/2011-January/022393.html
>>> 
>>> Regarding your questions,
>>> 
>>>> - Why shouldn't the included versions of autoconf, automake, readline, sed 
>>>> &c. be sufficient for compiling Octave?
>>> 
>>> The simple answer, is that the versions of the tools bundled with 
>>> MacOS/Xcode are dated and do not include the functionality needed to build 
>>> Octave. However, I'm not sure about sed, as I don't know what version is 
>>> needed. It is possible that a inspired volunteer could modify the build 
>>> process so that the tools provided by Apple are sufficient, but as these 
>>> tools are only needed to build Octave, and are readily available, I don't 
>>> see sufficient motivation for this change.
>>> 
>>>> - I don't want Aquaterm to be the default, as X11 does just fine and is 
>>>> installed by default on all new Macs, and Aquaterm at first glance hasn't 
>>>> been maintained in about 5 years.
>>> 
>>> The default terminal used by Gnuplot is easily modified by setting the 
>>> environment variable "GNUTERM". If you place the following in ~/.octaverc 
>>> then x11 will be used instead of aqua.
>>> 
>>>     setenv ("GNUTERM", "x11")
>>> 
>>>> - The recommended Fortran compiler, which I already use for other things, 
>>>> gives the first 'configure' error when I try to build Octave from source. 
>>>> It's a different error wither or not I try --enable-64, but they're both 
>>>> about integer size.
>>> 
>>> I assume you are not using Fink or Macports, but have installed Xcode. 
>>> Since Xcode does not include a fortran compiler, one must be installed. You 
>>> can install a fortran compiler, which is compatible with Apple's version of 
>>> gcc (bundled with Xcode), from the link below.
>>> 
>>>     http://r.research.att.com/tools/
>>> 
>>> Ben
>> 
>> The Fortran compiler from r.research.att.com is the one I'm using. I'm 
>> attempting to build octave-3.3.54 with it and I'm getting the following 
>> errors in configure, with and without --enable-64 respectively:
>> 
>> configure: error: in order to build octave with 64-bit indexing support your 
>> Fortran compiler must have an option for setting the default integer size to 
>> 8 bytes.  See the file INSTALL for more information.
>> configure: error: your Fortran compiler must have an option to make integers 
>> the same size as octave_idx_type (int).  See the file INSTALL for more 
>> information.
>> 
>> I've had some success with building universal binaries with configure 
>> scripts on 64-bit Macs in the past, so I expect that I can eventually get it 
>> to work. It's also possible that a 64-bit-only version might be necessary. 
>> Does the --enable-64 function for indexing integer size require that the 
>> binary itself be 64-bit, though?
>> 
>> I have been using the GNUTERM variable to revert to X11. I seem to recall 
>> that it used to be the default, but was switched to Aquaterm years ago. In 
>> my opinion X11 should be the default again, to avoid dependencies on third 
>> party projects and projects which may be unmaintained.
>> 
>> I'll look through the other links and see if I can resolve the other 
>> dependencies.
> 
> I haven't attempted a 64bit build. Hopefully someone with some experience 
> will comment.
> 
> Regarding the default gnuplot terminal, using Aqua appears to be preferred by 
> most Mac users.
> 
> The next version of Octave will include a native graphics backend. Meaning 
> gnuplot will not be needed to display graphics.
> 
> Ben
> 
> p.s. pls respond below so that those arriving late may easily follow along.


I am getting the errors even if I attempt a 32-bit build of octave-3.3.54. The 
error is during the running of ./configure.

I get further with octave-3.2.4. After installing gnu readline and sed (with 
--prefix=/usr) I get through the configure stage and can proceed to make. I 
eventually get the following error:

gcc -c -I/usr/X11/include/freetype2 -I/usr/X11/include -fPIC -I. -I../.. 
-I../../liboctave -I../../src -I../../libcruft/misc  -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -mieee-fp 
-Wall -W -Wshadow -Wformat -g -O2 -D_THREAD_SAFE  f77-fcn.c -o pic/f77-fcn.o
In file included from f77-fcn.c:31:
f77-fcn.h:224: error: ‘F77_FUNC’ declared as function returning a function
f77-fcn.h:224: warning: parameter names (without types) in function declaration
f77-fcn.c:50: error: ‘F77_FUNC’ declared as function returning a function
f77-fcn.c: In function ‘F77_FUNC’:
f77-fcn.c:50: warning: type of ‘xstopx’ defaults to ‘int’
f77-fcn.c:50: warning: type of ‘XSTOPX’ defaults to ‘int’
f77-fcn.c:59: error: ‘s’ undeclared (first use in this function)
f77-fcn.c:59: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
f77-fcn.c:59: error: for each function it appears in.)
f77-fcn.c:59: error: ‘slen’ undeclared (first use in this function)
f77-fcn.c:64: warning: function declared ‘noreturn’ has a ‘return’ statement
f77-fcn.c:50: warning: unused parameter ‘xstopx’
f77-fcn.c:50: warning: unused parameter ‘XSTOPX’
make[3]: *** [pic/f77-fcn.o] Error 1

At this point I installed gnu autoconf and automake, which did not change the 
error. I also attempted using "F77=gfortran -ff2c" with configure, and the 
error still did not change.

I am using gfortran-4.2.3 from r.research.att.com which I installed on this 
machine earlier today.