Sxiv: Building on MacOS

[rpdelaney]

Is it possible to build sxiv 25 on macos? It seems to depend on X11 library:

$ make
GEN config.h
CC autoreload_inotify.o
In file included from autoreload_inotify.c:19:
In file included from ./sxiv.h:27:
/usr/local/include/Imlib2.h:26:10: fatal error: 'X11/Xlib.h' file not found
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make: *** [Makefile:50: autoreload_inotify.o] Error 1

XQuartz is a thing and can be installed via a homebrew cask. For what it's worth, sxiv 1.3.2 is in homebrew and it does run with xquartz as a runtime dependency. But 1.3.2 does not have X11 as a build dependency and it is coming up on five years old.

I was able to clear the X11 build errors by (perhaps stupidly) editing all the libraries in /opt/X11/include/ with basically s#<X11#</opt/X11/include/X11#, but I was still not able to build because of sxiv build dependency on inotify.h:

$ make
CC autoreload_inotify.o
autoreload_inotify.c:25:10: fatal error: 'sys/inotify.h' file not found
#include <sys/inotify.h>
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make: *** [Makefile:50: autoreload_inotify.o] Error 1

I don't know of a provider for inotify.h on macos. If anyone has suggestions, or has managed to build sxiv 25 on macos, please let me know.

[sdx23]

You can simply disable the autoreload feature by using the backend "nop", then sxiv will not depend on inotify. Just set "AUTORELOAD=nop" for make.

If you're more adventurous you can create a new autoreload-backend that uses the Mac OS FS Events api instead of inotify, to port this feature to mac.

[rpdelaney]

Thanks. That got me to the next error:

$ make AUTORELOAD=nop 
CC autoreload_nop.o
CC commands.o
CC image.o
CC main.o
GEN version.h
CC options.o
CC thumbs.o
thumbs.c:96:32: warning: result of comparison of constant 4294967295 with expression of type 'Imlib_Load_Error' (aka 'enum _imlib_load_error') is always false [-Wtautological-constant-out-of-range-compare]
                                if ((err = r_mkdir(cfile)) == -1)
                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ^  ~~
1 warning generated.
CC util.o
CC window.o
LINK sxiv
ld: library not found for -lX11
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
make: *** [Makefile:42: sxiv] Error 1

I'll be working on this now, but help is appreciated of course.

If you're more adventurous you can create a new autoreload-backend that uses the Mac OS FS Events api instead of inotify, to port this feature to mac.

That is ambitious for me. I don't know a whole lot about C. As it stands, getting the homebrew formula updated will be challenging since it seems so many changes to xquartz itself are necessary, and I don't know if they will be accepted either.

If I can get my own binary compiled (and leave a trail of breadcrumbs for others), that may have to be enough.

[oskarits]

I too have grown very fond of sxiv and would love to find a way to get it to work on macos.

I got the same errors as you, but have withered my own error message to just

CC autoreload_nop.o CC commands.o CC image.o CC main.o GEN version.h CC options.o CC thumbs.o thumbs.c:96:32: warning: result of comparison of constant 4294967295 with expression of type 'Imlib_Load_Error' (aka 'enum _imlib_load_error') is always false [-Wtautological-constant-out-of-range-compare] if ((err = r_mkdir(cfile)) == -1) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ^ ~~ 1 warning generated. CC util.o CC window.o LINK sxiv

by adding
LDFLAGS = -L/opt/X11/lib -lX11 -lpthread
to the makefile.

[muennich]

I tried to resolve the warning in thumb.c:96. This was the only real issue here. Thanks @oskarits for working out which LDFLAGS are needed to make it compile on Mac OS.

[rpdelaney]

Hm, I still have this issue when I haven't hacked up the libraries provided by xquartz:

$ git clone [email protected]:muennich/sxiv.git && cd sxiv && make
Cloning into 'sxiv'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 75, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (75/75), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (49/49), done.
remote: Total 3572 (delta 32), reused 58 (delta 26), pack-reused 3497
Receiving objects: 100% (3572/3572), 1.53 MiB | 3.14 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2315/2315), done.
GEN config.h
CC autoreload_inotify.o
In file included from autoreload_inotify.c:19:
In file included from ./sxiv.h:27:
/usr/local/include/Imlib2.h:26:10: fatal error: 'X11/Xlib.h' file not found
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make: *** [Makefile:50: autoreload_inotify.o] Error 1

@muennich in your opinion is this a defect with xquartz?

[muennich]

Calling make AUTORELOAD=nop LDFLAGS=-L/opt/X11/lib LDLIBS=-lpthread should work.

[rpdelaney]

$ make AUTORELOAD=nop LDFLAGS=-L/opt/X11/lib LDLIBS=-lpthread
GEN config.h
CC autoreload_nop.o
In file included from autoreload_nop.c:19:
In file included from ./sxiv.h:27:
/usr/local/include/Imlib2.h:26:10: fatal error: 'X11/Xlib.h' file not found
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make: *** [Makefile:50: autoreload_nop.o] Error 1

[muennich]

make AUTORELOAD=nop CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/X11/include LDFLAGS=-L/opt/X11/lib LDLIBS=-lpthread

[rpdelaney]

That did it. Thank you!

I'll take a stab at getting the formula updated in homebrew.