Building SWI-Prolog on MacOS (Leopard and Snow Leopard)
This note was sent to the SWI-Prolog mailinglist on Jan 10, 2010 by Paulo Moura.
- The fix for the XPCE configure script bug, that results in the settings in the SWI-Prolog portfiles to be ignored needs to be back-ported from 5.9.4 to 5.8.x. Apparently, this bug results in X11 libraries being searched in /usr/lib, which works on Linux but not on MacOS X. On Leopard, the X11 are either installed in /opt/local/lib by the "xorg-libs" port or in /usr/X11/lib by the XQuartz installer. Snow Leopard already includes compatible X11 libraries in /usr/X11.
- Make sure that the Developer Tools are installed. The Xcode installer is included in the install DVDs. The latest version of Xcode can be downloaded from Apple after a free registration (if memory serves).
- Make sure that both X11 and the X11 SDK are installed. These are optional installs on Snow Leopard. Use your install DVDs if needed (You get the X11 SDK through the Xcode installer, if memory serves). When installing SWI-Prolog >= 5.9.4 from sources using the portfiles I posted to this list, the "xorg-libs" port (a dependency declared in the "swi-prolog-devel" portfile) install the X11 libs in /opt/local/lib.
- Don't use the MacOS X 10.5 installers on 10.6. It will most likely don't work and will lead to further problems if later you try to install from sources (e.g. "wrong architecture" errors when trying to run SWI-Prolog).
- Make sure that you're running an up-to-date installation of MacPorts. In doubt, and if you are not using MacPorts for anything else, simply delete the /opt/local directory.
- On Snow Leopard do not try the XQuartz installer. It's not needed and it will not work.
- Don't use the SWI-Prolog portfiles downloaded using MacPorts
until the following commands:
port info swi-prolog port info swi-prolog-lite port info swi-prolog-devel
show versions >= 5.9.4 for the development release and >= 5.8.3 for the stable release. Usually, I submitted update portfiles as soon as new release of SWI-Prolog are out. Unfortunately, it may take some time for the portfiles to be committed and made available when self-updating the MacPorts installation.
- Use the portfile attached below with the procedure described in the MacPorts guide for custom, local portfiles and also described in a message to this list by Henry Soldano in December 22 to get SWI-Prolog 5.9.6 up and running on Snow Leopard.
Most likely there are still some non-diagnosed issues when installing SWI-Prolog on Snow Leopard. For once, I successfully installed 5.8.0 and 5.8.2 using stock MacPorts on a brand new laptop without the issues reported by Norbert's. But I also use a lot of other ports, which may play some part on this never-ending story.
In an ideal world, Jan and me would have access to both clean PowerPC and Intel Macs, running 10.5 and 10.6, and enough free time to diagnose these issues and provide both bullet-proof source installation instructions and binary installers. For now, please report your experiences, both successful and unsuccessful ones, with as much details as possible. I hope to be able to work on binary installers by February.