Building for Macintosh platform: Difference between revisions

or, How to Minimalistically GNUify MacOSX For Building Octave From Scratch

If you are looking for an already build version of Octave for MacOSX then visit one of the following web pages that do provide a binary-release of octave and follow the instructions for installing Octave from these web pages:

     http://www.hmug.org/

     http://fink.sourceforge.net/

     http://www.macports.org/

Before building Octave from scratch on a MacOSX platform you need to install several GNU programs and libraries that are not shipped with your Mac. This description will guide you through the procedure of GNUifying your MacOSX step by step, so that you are then be able to configure, compile, install and run the Octave program.

If available, then binary-releases of the necessary programs are preferred by this description, otherwise there is no other way as to configure, compile and install other source-releases of these programs. The minimalistical requirements for installing these programs on your Mac are that you have at least MacOSX version 10.4.x running on your Mac (either Core Duo or PPC).

(1) Install the Xcode-Tools (ie. the gcc-suite, the c-library and other tools) that are shipped with your computer from "MacOSX Install Disc 1". Optionally you can get the latest version of these tools from http://developer.apple.com/tools/download. Follow the instructions from the "About Xcode Tools.pdf" file on how to install these tools. Make sure that you have installed the latest releases.

(2) Install the X11 environment (ie. the Xserver application etc.) that are shipped with your computer from "MacOSX Install Disc 1". The X11 environment can be installed via the "Optional Installs.mpkg" program and is needed by various graphics programs (10). Make sure that you have installed the latest release. Choose "Software-Update" in your menu bar to download and to reinstall the latest versions.

(3) Prepare a directory and the settings on your environment for installing the following programs and libraries. Create the directory /usr/local that is not present by default on your new Mac and set up some variables in either your .profile file (if you plan to use the Terminal.app from MacOSX for compiling Octave) or your .bashrc file (if you plan to use the terminal application from your X11 environment). Do this the following way:

Also read the troubleshooting part at the bottom of this file for further details about which Fortran compiler to use for MacOSX.

(6) Download and install a source-release of the program "sed" because the one that is implied in MacOSX is a BSD-flavoured POSIX version and a GNU version is required to build Octave. The source-release of the latest sed program can be downloaded from Internet at http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/sed. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(7) Download and install a source-release of the program "bison" because the one that is implied in MacOSX a BSD-flavoured POSIX version and a GNU version is required to build Octave. The source-release of the latest bison program can be downloaded from Internet at http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bison. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(8) Download and install a source-release of the program "gawk". Gawk is not included in MacOSX (the program "awk" is included in MacOSX but "gawk" is needed to compile Octave). The source-version of the latest gawk-release can be downloaded from Internet at http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gawk. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(9) Download and install a source-release of the "readline" library. There is already a readline-library included in MacOSX but by now I do not know how to include the installed version in the compilation procedure of Octave. The source-version of the latest readline-release can be downloaded from Internet at http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/readline. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(**) You are already done setting up your MacOSX for configuring, building, installing and running the minimalistic version of Octave. If you want full Octave functionality you need to download and install more source packages before building Octave, read the EXTENSIONS part of this file at the bottom.

(+A) Download and install a source-release of the "pcre" library. There is no pcre-library included in MacOSX. The source-version of the latest pcre-release can be downloaded from Internet at http://www.pcre.org. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(+B) Download and install a source-release of the "hdf5" library. There is no hdf5-library included in MacOSX. The source-version of the latest hdf5-release can be downloaded from Internet at ftp://ftp.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/current/. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(+C) Download and install a source-release of the "fftw" library. There is no fftw-library included in MacOSX. The source-version of the latest fftw-release can be downloaded from Internet at http://www.fftw.org. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way:

(+D) Download and install a source-release of the "curl" library. There is no curl-library included in MacOSX. The source-version of the latest curl-release can be downloaded from Internet at http://curl.haxx.se. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way

(+E) Download and install a source-release of the "glpk" library. There is no glpk-library included in MacOSX. The source-version of the latest glpk-release can be downloaded from Internet at http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glpk. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way

(+F) Download and install a source-release of the "suitesparse" library. There is no suitesparse-library included in MacOSX. The source-version of the latest release can be downloaded from Internet at http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/SuiteSparse. Edit file UFconfig/UFconfig.mk and replace (in about line 76) "-lgoto" with "-lblas". The metis source package is also needed to build the "suitesparse" library, it can be downloaded from internet at http://glaros.dtc.umn.edu/gkhome/views/metis. Unpack, configure, compile and install this program the following way

(1) There are reports on the mailing lists of Octave, that automake also needs to be updated because the version that is shipped with MacOSX doesn't work (especially with G5 Macs this problem may occur). So you might need to install a newer version than the one shipped with your Mac.

This is a known MacOSX problem for over years now and may occur if you have multiply version of Fortran compilers installed on your system. GFortran is one of the known Fortran compilers that do work very well with the gcc-suite that is shipped with your computer. When running "./configure" in your Octave path then make sure that GFortran is the one and only Fortran compiler on your system (the fink version of gfortran installed with the package gcc42 also works).

(3) When installing sed there may occur an error that sed cannot be build. This is a known problem, you first need a working sed (the one implied in MacOSX a BSD-flavoured POSIX version and a GNU version is required to build Octave) to build another sed for your system, so do the following: