Installing Code::Blocks from source on Mac OS X

From Code::Blocks

These are instructions on how to build Code::Blocks under Apple Mac OS X. They have been tested under Mac OS X version 10.3, but should work under Mac OS X 10.4 (PowerPC and Intel) and old Mac OS X 10.2 and 10.1 as well.

We will be building everything from scratch using the source code, and not use any available package managers like DarwinPorts, Fink, Gentoo or RPM. Packaging can be done later, once it has reached a more stable release.

Install Developer Tools

If they didn't come bundled with Mac OS X, get the Xcode Tools (or Developer Tools for older Mac OS X) from:

http://developer.apple.com/tools/

This will install Apple versions of:

Note: 2006/04 Apple pulled all the old links in order to promote Mac OS X 10.4, but all the old developer tools can be downloaded from ADC at http://connect.apple.com/

You need a (free) developer registration with Apple first, in order to log in there. For Mac OS X 10.4, you want (at least) Xcode 2.2, since earlier versions were buggy. For Mac OS X 10.3, you want Xcode 1.5. For Mac OS X 10.1-10.2, the latest Dev Tools.

Check Autotools versions

Depending on your OS version, you might need to download and compile new versions of these:

Check what you have, with --version (note that GNU libtool is called "glibtool" on Mac OS X)

Currently Code::Blocks requires versions:

  • autoconf 2.50+
  • automake 1.7+
  • libtool 1.4+

Automake example (Panther)

For Mac OS X 10.3, you will only need an upgraded (local) installation of automake 1.7.x.

You can download "automake-1.7.9.tar.gz" and configure and install it with something like: 

./configure --program-suffix=-1.7
make
sudo make install

Since it's now known as "automake-1.7", it won't interfere with the regular "automake"

Universal Binaries

If you are building for Mac OS X 10.4, you might want to build "Universal Binaries " These are binaries that contain code for both PowerPC ("powerpc") and Intel ("i686")

The basic flags that needs to be added are: 

CFLAGS += "-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk -arch i386 -arch ppc"

(You only need the sysroot parameter on PowerPC Macintosh, not on a Intel Macintosh) The "-arch i386 -arch ppc" is what tells the compiler to build a "universal" (or "fat") binary.

Usually it's easiest to build one version for "powerpc-apple-darwin8", and one version for "i686-apple-darwin8", and then merge them with "lipo" 

./configure --host=powerpc-apple-darwin8 --target=powerpc-apple-darwin8
./configure --host=i686-apple-darwin8 --target=i686-apple-darwin8

Some caveats:

  • pre-compiled headers might fail with a "no main" error. If they do, add a -c to only compile them
  • when cross-compiling, tools like auto_revision might fail to build. copy these from a native build
  • the Tiger compilers might crash from time to time, but that is only to be expected (it seems)...

See Technical Note TN2137: Building Universal Binaries from "configure"-based Open Source Projects

Build wxWidgets 2.6

Download the Mac release

http://wxwidgets.org/downloads/#latest_stable

Don't forget to apply any released patches!

http://wxwidgets.org/downloads/patch.htm

Configure and (GNU) Make

mkdir mac-build
cd mac-build
../configure --enable-shared --enable-monolithic --with-opengl --with-mac \
            --with-png=builtin --with-tiff=builtin --with-jpeg=builtin && make

note: the easiest way to build a Universal Binary with wxWidgets is the new flag: --enable-universal_binary (you need wxWidgets 2.6.3+)

Install into Destination

sudo make install

Install Subversion client

http://subversion.tigris.org/

Build CodeBlocks from SVN

Download the source code

https://www.codeblocks.org/source_code.shtml

Bootstrap with Autotools

The "bootstrap" script doesn't work on Mac OS X, so do it manually: 

./update_revision.sh
glibtoolize --force --copy && \
aclocal-1.7 && \
cat /usr/share/aclocal/libtool.m4 >> aclocal.m4 && \
autoheader && \
automake-1.7 --include-deps --add-missing --foreign --copy && \
autoconf

Configure

LDFLAGS="`wx-config --libs`" ./configure

Note: all the plugins fail to link on Mac OS X, since codeblocks refers to wxWidgets libs (this is why there is an extra LDFLAGS invocation in the above, until it has been fixed) 

ld: object_file illegal reference to symbol: ***
defined in indirectly referenced dynamic library: ***

Note: the easiest way to build a Universal Binary for Code::Blocks is to build once for PowerPC (-arch ppc) and once for Intel (-arch i386), and then merge them afterwards.

Tiger Fix

There is a bug in the glibtool of Mac OS X 10.4, that fails to link C++ libs: 

ld: multiple definitions of symbol ___umoddi3
/usr/lib/gcc/powerpc-apple-darwin8/4.0.1/libgcc.a(_umoddi3.o) private external definition of ___umoddi3 in section (__TEXT,__text)
/usr/lib/gcc/powerpc-apple-darwin8/4.0.1/../../../libgcc_s.10.4.dylib(_umoddi3_s.o) definition of ___umoddi3

ld: multiple definitions of symbol ___umoddi3
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-apple-darwin8/4.0.1/libgcc.a(_umoddi3.o) private external definition of ___umoddi3 in section (__TEXT,__text)
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-apple-darwin8/4.0.1/../../../libgcc_s.10.4.dylib(_umoddi3_s.o) definition of ___umoddi3

To work around this, you need to edit the generated "libtool" script manually: 

177c177
< whole_archive_flag_spec="-all_load \$convenience"
---
> whole_archive_flag_spec=""
6921c6921
< whole_archive_flag_spec="-all_load \$convenience"
---
> whole_archive_flag_spec=""

This bug has been fixed in GNU libtool 1.5.8 and later.

(GNU) Make

nice make

Install into Destination

sudo make install

Bundle application for Mac

After building codeblocks in the regular Unix way, you need to bundle it with the icons and various other info that it needs to make a regular stand-alone Macintosh application.

There are two ways of accomplishing this, old Mac OS-style resource or NeXT-style bundle. The old resources are handy while developing, while bundles are more suitable for release.

Note: You need to use either of these methods, or your application will launch in the background behind all other windows and will be unable to receive any events!

Way 1. Mac OS (resource)

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/Resource_Manager/

Handy while developing, as you only need to add an icon.

Files needed:

First we install the program to the PREFIX directory of your choice: 

$PREFIX/bin
$PREFIX/lib
$PREFIX/share/codeblocks

Add a custom icon to the application, and make it receive events: 

gunzip CodeBlocks.r.gz
sudo /Developer/Tools/Rez -d __DARWIN__ -t APPL -d __WXMAC__ \
                          CodeBlocks.r Carbon.r -o $PREFIX/bin/codeblocks
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a C $PREFIX/bin/codeblocks

Without the icon part, this could also have be written as just: 

sudo `wx-config --rezflags` $PREFIX/bin/codeblocks

Start the application with a small prefix shell wrapper like this: 

DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH:$PREFIX/lib
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

$PREFIX/bin/codeblocks --prefix=$PREFIX

Common PREFIX Settings

Local: PREFIX=/usr/local

System: PREFIX=/usr

DarwinPorts: PREFIX=/opt/local

Fink: PREFIX=/sw

Way 2. NeXT (bundle)

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/CoreFoundation/Conceptual/CFBundles/

This does not involve resources, and is more relocatable.

Files needed:

The MacOS program will just be a shell wrapper that calls "bin/codeblocks", like above. Traditionally the bundle would include Frameworks and Resources, but we'll just avoid those here and use the regular "lib" and "share/codeblocks" instead (just as with a regular install).

Setup a hierarchy like this, and copy the files from the regular build/install and the above file list to it: 

 CodeBlocks.app
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/Info.plist
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/MacOS/
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/MacOS/CodeBlocks
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/Resources/
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/Resources/CodeBlocks.icns
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/bin/
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/lib/
 CodeBlocks.app/Contents/share/codeblocks/

The CodeBlocks application can now be moved with the Finder, and started up like a regular Mac application.

Proper Bundling

To avoid the shell wrapper, the binary can now be moved from "bin/codeblocks" to "MacOS/CodeBlocks". Helper files are moved from "share/codeblocks" to "Resources". The dynamic libraries are moved from "lib" to "MacOS", and renamed (with install_name_tool -change) from e.g. /usr/local/lib/ to @executable_path/.


Install with DarwinPorts

To build and install Code::Blocks, you will need:

The following need to go in the "files" directory:

Optionally and for reference, you might want these:

Put the Portfile in your local DarwinPorts tree as dports/devel/codeblocks/Portfile and download the helper files to dports/devel/codeblocks/files. (then do a chdir to dports, and run the /opt/local/bin/portindex command)

After that set up has been done, you can install it with: 

sudo port install codeblocks

This will download the SVN trunk, and any dependencies: 

--->  Fetching codeblocks
--->  Verifying checksum(s) for codeblocks
--->  Extracting codeblocks
--->  Applying patches to codeblocks
--->  Configuring codeblocks
--->  Building codeblocks with target all
--->  Staging codeblocks into destroot
--->  Packaging tgz archive for codeblocks 1.0_0+macosx
--->  Installing codeblocks 1.0_0+macosx
--->  Activating codeblocks 1.0_0+macosx
--->  Cleaning codeblocks

After the build completes, you can start the program by: 

open /Applications/DarwinPorts/CodeBlocks.app

The non-bundled wxGTK version is instead started with: 

/opt/local/bin/codeblocks
Retrieved from "https://wiki.codeblocks.org/index.php?title=Installing_Code::Blocks_from_source_on_Mac_OS_X&oldid=3791"