Haskell package missing c library

Question

I'm having trouble building the hmatrix library on OS X Lion. Looking at the .cabal file, it requires the gsl library, so I installed it with macports. The .a files are in /opt/local/lib and the .h files are in /opt/local/include/gsl

As suggested here I changed the built-type from Custom to Simple. (without that change I get a similar error).

When I use cabal configure I get the following output:

* Missing C library: gsl
This problem can usually be solved by installing the system package that
provides this library (you may need the "-dev" version). If the library is
already installed but in a non-standard location then you can use the flags
--extra-include-dirs= and --extra-lib-dirs= to specify where it is.

So I tried cabal --extra-include-dirs=/opt/local/include --extra-lib-dirs=/opt/local/lib configure, but I still get the same error. I can compile and link a c program that includes gsl. What files is cabal looking for? If I have the right files, how do I tell it how to find them?

libgsl.a is a universal binary:

$ file /opt/local/lib/libgsl.a
    /opt/local/lib/libgsl.a: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
    /opt/local/lib/libgsl.a (for architecture x86_64):  current ar archive random library
    /opt/local/lib/libgsl.a (for architecture i386):    current ar archive random library

ghc looks like it's 64-bit:

$ ghc --info
 [("Project name","The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System")
 ,("GCC extra via C opts"," -fwrapv")
 ,("C compiler command","/usr/bin/llvm-gcc")
 ,("C compiler flags"," -m64 -fno-stack-protector  -m64")
 ,("ar command","/usr/bin/ar")
 ,("ar flags","clqs")
 ,("ar supports at file","NO")
 ,("touch command","touch")
 ,("dllwrap command","/bin/false")
 ,("windres command","/bin/false")
 ,("perl command","/usr/bin/perl")
 ,("target os","OSDarwin")
 ,("target arch","ArchX86_64")
 ,("target word size","8")
 ,("target has GNU nonexec stack","False")
 ,("target has subsections via symbols","True")
 ,("Project version","7.4.2")
 ,("Booter version","7.4.2")
 ,("Stage","2")
 ,("Build platform","x86_64-apple-darwin")
 ,("Host platform","x86_64-apple-darwin")
 ,("Target platform","x86_64-apple-darwin")
 ,("Have interpreter","YES")
 ,("Object splitting supported","NO")
 ,("Have native code generator","YES")
 ,("Support SMP","YES")
 ,("Unregisterised","NO")
 ,("Tables next to code","YES")
 ,("RTS ways","l debug  thr thr_debug thr_l thr_p  dyn debug_dyn thr_dyn thr_debug_dyn")
 ,("Leading underscore","YES")
 ,("Debug on","False")
 ,("LibDir","/usr/local/Cellar/ghc/7.4.2/lib/ghc-7.4.2")
 ,("Global Package DB","/usr/local/Cellar/ghc/7.4.2/lib/ghc-7.4.2/package.conf.d")
 ,("Gcc Linker flags","[\"-m64\"]")
 ,("Ld Linker flags","[\"-arch\",\"x86_64\"]")
 ]

Answer 1

As an alternative to mac-ports you can use the nix package manager for mac. It does a pretty good job of taking care of the c dependancies for for the libraries available through it. In general I have been more happy with it then any other package manager on mac.

Unfortunately mac(darwin) unlike for linux does not have as many binaries available through nix so installing ghc often means waiting for it to compile.

The commands to install ghc and hmatrix after installation of nix are:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs-unstable.haskellPackages.ghc
nix-env -iA nixpkgs-unstable.haskellPackages.hmatrix

All of the needed dependencies will be taken care of for you.

I just tried it on my macbook pro and hmatrix seems to be working correctly in ghci after trying commands from the first few pages of the tutorial.

Answer 2

I'm not a mac person, but it really sounds like you haven't installed the "-dev" version. For a mac, I suspect you need to install gsl-devel in addition to gsl. If the problem persists, verify that you have libgsl0-dev on your library path.