Mac OSX status (was: Re: Some questions)

[Per Persson]

Hi,

I gave it a fair shot a while ago and Octave compiles under OSX using 
f2c, but it won't link. There are problems with
template functions (see info below). OpenOffice 
(http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/) has the same issues and have some 
info on how to work around it. I won't have time to work on Octave for 
OSX until after the summer and I think that by that time there will be a 
gcc 3.0 solving the problems;-)

> There's been some work on it, but no success reported yet.  Things that
> are (sort of) in place: X-windows support, either through Tenon's 
> X-tools
> or by installing XFree86, possibly with some wrappers for an Aqua 
> interface
> such as Xvnc.  I compiled gnuplot out-of-the-box under Xtools, so 
> that's there.

Another approach would be to write a native (Cocoa) graphics terminal 
driver for gnuplot.
It's fairly easy;-) Have a look at openstep.trm/next.trm in gnuplot 
sources. If anyone is interested in working on this I have some code to 
get you started. Mail me!

The obvoious advantage is that XFree86/XTools won't be neccessary.


> I haven't tried using f2c in place of g77 on OS X; that may be an 
> interim
> option.

It works!

/Per

------------ Info from apple on the subject -----------------
Turly at apple dot com wrote:

> To avoid duplicated code, OS X gcc "coalesces" certain functions, chief 
> among them template funcs.  The idea is to allow multiple copies of 
> these functions which the linker then "coalesces" into one.
> Unfortunately, there's a bug in the shipping compiler which breaks in 
> the case of '-fno-implicit-templates'.  So you might want to try 
> compiling without that switch.
>
> Alternatively (and additionally, if you want :-), you might want to try 
> compiling with "-fno-coalesce".
>
> We are working to fix this bug but obviously I can't say when a new 
> version of the compiler will be released (don't hold your breath.)



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