Re: GSoC: Improve binary packaging on Mac OS X

[Anirudha Bose]

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 7:34 AM, Ben Abbott <address@hidden> wrote:

On Aug 3, 2013, at 6:28 PM, Anirudha Bose wrote:

> Hi everyone.
>
> I would like to have some input on how to proceed with building app bundles for Mac OS X. I have written a post about it in my blog [1].
>
> Ben, I have read your wiki page on creating app bundles for Mac OS X using Macports. Since you are experienced with this, so maybe you can help me get started. I suppose there is no app bundle for the current Octave release.
>
> [1] http://anigsoc2013.wordpress.com/
>
> Regards,
> Anirudha

I haven't had time to put a bundle together for the latest release.  And if I did, it would only run on X86_64 based CPUs running Lion or Mountain Lion (Macports doesn't provide universal versions of all ports needed to satisfy Octave's dependencies).  I'm not familiar with MXE, but perhaps universal builds are possible?

I am not a Mac user, so maybe my questions might seem lame to everyone. The Macports website says "We provide a single software tree that attempts to track the latest release of every software title (port) we distribute ... targeting mainly the current Mac OS X release (10.8, A.K.A. Mountain Lion) and the immediately previous two (10.7, A.K.A. Lion and 10.6, A.K.A. Snow Leopard)." Doesn't this mean that we can get Octave's dependencies for different versions of Mac OS?

In any event, the first step is to build Octave and all its dependencies and in a common directory tree.  Once that is done, a bundle can be constructed manually and install_name_tool or an equivalent can be used to change the original paths of the dynamic shared libraries to the relative paths needed an app bundle (this is a MacOSX necessity that ensures the bundle links to the property libraries).

If it isn't possible to produce universal binaries for all the dependencies, then it will be necessary to produce both 64 bit (for Lion and above) and 32 bit (For Snow Leopard and below) versions.

My knowledge of what is needed is rather shallow.  But I am happy to help answer questions.

Ben

- Anirudha