MacOS Build Environment

Setting up a MacOS development environment

This describes the steps necessary to configure MacOS for the development and building of RAF software. This procedure is valid for MacOS Sierra - Catalina and will work for ncplot, ncpp, and aircraft_oap.

Brew is used to install most of the necessary tools. It installs everything in /usr/local. You can also install other items in /usr/local, but it's best not to overwrite or change files that brew is managing. The actual software distributions, libraries, etc. are stored in /usr/local/Cellar, and brew then creates links in /usr/local/[bin,lib,Frameworks,opt]. (The links seem to be arbitrarily duplicated in one or more directories; it's a mystery to me why this is done.)

If you do mess things up for brew, use brew doctor to diagnose the problem. It will helpfully offer commands that you can use to clean up the mess, but use these carefully, with an understanding of what is happening.

• brew search <pkg> to find a package.
• brew info <pkg> to list the options that are available during the install.
• brew install <options> <pkg> to install a package.
• brew list to list installed packages.
• brew list <pkg> to list files installed by a package.
• brew upgrade <pkg> Upgrade package. Leave off to upgrade all.
• brew doctor to find discrepancies.
• brew cleanup to clean house.
• man brew is well written.

Steps

1. Make sure that your user account has admin privileges.

2. Xcode
   Install Xcode from the Apple App store. You have to login with an iCloud ID, but apparently you can create one of these without providing billing information.

3. XQuartz
   XQuartz allows old style X11 programs to display on MacOS. Install from https://www.xquartz.org/

4. Homebrew

   ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL \
   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" 
   

5. Standard brew installs

   brew install scons
   brew install pkg-config
   brew install netcdf netcdf-cxx
   brew install gsl
   brew install openmotif
   brew install log4cpp
   brew install xerces-c
   brew install boost
   brew install gmt  (Geo-Political Map for ncplot)