taucs on Mac OS X

Alec Jacobson

July 13, 2010

weblog/

Yesterday I spent way too long trying to get taucs compiled and linking on a Mac machine running OS X 10.6. Because my Qt is compiling for 32 bits I needed a 32-bit/i386 libtaucs.a, this was not so easy. I began hoping to compile a universal library, but couldn't manage to do it. I've previously posted about how to compile a 64-bit version of taucs on a mac 10.6 machine (this was not so bad). Update: Thanks to the useful comment below, I've modify these steps so that the result is a unviersal (32-bit and 64-bit) libtaucs.a

Part one: Compiling libtaucs.a (universal)

In the taucs directory (here on out [taucs] issue the following:

cp config/darwin.mk config/darwin10.0.mk

Then open up config/darwin10.0.mk and edit the following lines to look like this:

CFLAGS    = -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -O3 -faltivec

LIBBLAS   = -framework Accelerate
LIBLAPACK = -framework Accelerate
LIBMETIS  = -lmetis

LIBF77 = -lf2c

Now, this part is really messy but hopefully I'll remember everything I did. Before compiling libtaucs.a we need to compile libf2c.a and libmetis.a, and we need to do it so that both are at least i386. I think I managed to get mine to both be universal (i386 and x86_64). So, I've stripped these commands out of the buildf2c.sh script. Issue them in a terminal:

curl http://netlib.sandia.gov/cgi-bin/netlib/netlibfiles.tar?filename=netlib/f2c -o "f2c.tar"
tar -xvf f2c.tar
gunzip -rf f2c/*
cd f2c
unzip libf2c.zip -d libf2c
cd ..
sed 's/CC = cc/CC = \/usr\/bin\/cc/' f2c/libf2c/makefile.u > f2c/libf2c/makefile
sed 's/CC = cc/CC = \/usr\/bin\/cc/' f2c/src/makefile.u > f2c/src/makefile

At this point we need to edit the makefiles to make sure that they build universal libraries: In libf2c/makefile edit the following lines to look like this:

CFLAGS = -arch x86_64 -arch i386 -O
LDFLAGS += -arch x86_64 -arch i386

# compile, then strip unnecessary symbols
.c.o:
        $(CC) -c -DSkip_f2c_Undefs $(CFLAGS) $*.c
#        ld $(LDFLAGS) -r -x -o $*.xxx $*.o
#        mv $*.xxx $*.o

AND AGAIN in src/makefile edit the following lines to look like this:

CFLAGS = -arch x86_64 -arch i386 -O
LDFLAGS += -arch x86_64 -arch i386

# compile, then strip unnecessary symbols
.c.o:
        $(CC) -c -DSkip_f2c_Undefs $(CFLAGS) $*.c
#        ld $(LDFLAGS) -r -x -o $*.xxx $*.o
#        mv $*.xxx $*.o

Note: Be sure to comment out the ld ... and mv ... lines above. Now back to compiling:

cd f2c/libf2c
make f2c.h
if test ! -d /usr/local/include; then
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/include
fi
sudo cp f2c.h /usr/local/include/
make
if test ! -d /usr/local/lib; then
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib
fi
sudo cp libf2c.a /usr/local/lib/
sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libf2c.a
cd ../src
make
if test ! -d /usr/local/bin; then
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
fi
sudo cp f2c /usr/local/bin/
cd ..
chmod +x fc
sudo cp fc /usr/local/bin
sudo ln  -s /usr/local/bin/fc /usr/local/bin/f77
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/f77

~~Following the rest of the buildf2c.sh on your own to build the executables.~~ Next, we need to compile libmetis.a. Download and unzip the source then in the metis folder edit Makefile.in:

# What options to be used by the compiler
COPTIONS = -arch i386 -arch x86_64

# What options to be used by the loader
LDOPTIONS = -arch i386 -arch x86_64

Then issue:

make

and then

sudo cp libmetis.a /usr/local/lib/

Now, finally, go back to [taucs]. Here you can issue:

./configure
make

This should produce a universal libtaucs.a library.

Part two: Using libtaucs.a

You should have no problem compiling any of the examples, like those in [taucs]/progs, as long as you include the right headers and the library. For example I can issue the following (be sure to replace the [taucs]s):

cc -arch i386 -o direct [taucs]/progs/direct.c \
-I[taucs]/src/ -I[taucs]/build/darwin10.0/ \
-L[taucs]/lib/darwin10.0/ -ltaucs -framework \
Accelerate -lmetis -lf2c

cc -arch x86_64 -o direct [taucs]/progs/direct.c \
-I[taucs]/src/ -I[taucs]/build/darwin10.0/ \
-L[taucs]/lib/darwin10.0/ -ltaucs -framework \
Accelerate -lmetis -lf2c

Though I do get the warning:

In file included from taucs_with_LU/src/taucs.h:7,
                 from taucs_with_LU/progs/direct.c:17:
taucs_with_LU/build/darwin10.0/taucs_config_build.h:5:24: warning: missing whitespace after the macro name

This is because of a #define that uses darwin10.0 and periods are not allowed. Update: If you are using a mac then taucs will try to define a macro called OSTYPE and set it to an invalid c value: darwin10.0 (invalid because of the period). As a result whenever you include taucs.h you'll get hundreds of warnings. I fix this by opening [taucs]/build/taucs_config_build.h and commenting out the following lines before I make:

/* This is an automatically generated file */
/* Configuration name: anonymous */
//#define TAUCS_OSTYPE darwin10.0
...
//#define OSTYPE_darwin10.0
...

You should also be able to compile this simple c program, saved in taucs_super_simple.c:

#include <taucs.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  double x = taucs_get_nan();
  return 1;
}

I can compile and run this with:

cc -arch i386 -o taucs_super_simple taucs_super_simple.c \
-I[taucs]/src/ -I[taucs]/build/darwin10.0/ \
-L[taucs]/lib/darwin10.0/ -ltaucs -framework Accelerate
./taucs_super_simple

Now if you try the same simple program, naively translated to cpp like this, saved in taucs_super_simple.cpp:

extern "C"{
#include <taucs.h>
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  double x = taucs_get_nan();
  return 1;
}

and you try to compile with something like this:

c++ -arch i386 -o taucs_super_simple taucs_super_simple.cpp \
-I[taucs]/src/ -I[taucs]/build/darwin10.0/ \
-L[taucs]/lib/darwin10.0/ -ltaucs -framework Accelerate

You'll get a bagillion of these errors:

/usr/include/c++/4.2.1/complex:1104: error: template with C linkage

That's because taucs.h uses some complex library that is weird. Not sure why exactly you have to do this, but just add:

#include <complex>

above

extern "C"{
#include <taucs.h>
}

Do this anytime you include taucs. This should now compile with the above command.