Building Snack on Mac OS X

July 22, 2018 · View on GitHub

Download the Snack 2.2.10 source code and extract the file.
```
$ tar -xzf snack2.2.10.tar.gz
```
This command will extract all the source files into a snack2.2.10 folder.
Follow the directions in the snack2.2.10/mac/README, but with slightly different paths. Change to the snack2.2.10/unix directory. Then run:
```
$ ./configure --with-tcl=/System/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework --with-tk=/System/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework
```
Note that contrary to the README instructions, the correct path is /System/Library/Frameworks/... and not /Library/Frameworks/.... (Thanks to this blog post for the correction.)

Open Makefile and note the 3rd and 7th lines in the makefile:
```
TCL_INCPATH = /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/tcl/tcl-118.50.1/tcl/tcl/generic

TK_INCPATH  = /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/tcl/tcl-118.50.1/tk/tk/generic
```
You need to change TCL_INCPATH to /System/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Headers and TK_INCPATH to /System/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Headers

You can do this manually by opening up the file and typing in the paths.

Or you can do it on the command line by using sed:
```
$ sed -e '3s~.*~TCL_INCPATH = /System/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Headers~' -i '' Makefile
$ sed -e '7s~.*~TK_INCPATH = /System/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Headers~' -i '' Makefile
```
(Here we are using ~ as the delimiter in sed instead of /, since there are forward slashes / in the path name variable.)
Now we can compile the Snack library using make.
```
$ make
```
If you get the error sed: RE error: illegal byte sequence, then try:
```
$ export LC_CTYPE=C && export LANG=C && export LC_ALL=C && make
```
Build the Snack library by running
```
$ sudo make install
```
The Snack library should be installed in /lib/snack2.2.

(Alternatively, you can install to a specific directory using $ make DESTDIR=/path/to/directory install)
Copy the Snack library to the folder where Tcl looks for packages. On Mac OS X High Sierra which uses Tcl8.5, this should be /System/Library/Tcl/8.5.
```
$ sudo cp -R /lib/snack2.2 /System/Library/Tcl/8.5
```
(If you installed to a different directory, replace /lib/snack2.2 with the name of that directory.)

Check that Tcl can find the Snack library, by running the Tclsh shell.
```
$ tclsh8.5
% package require snack
% exit
```
When you run the tclsh command package require snack, it should output 2.2 if the Snack library has been installed correctly. If instead it output can't find package snack, then the install failed.

If you are running a different version of Tcl (e.g. Tcl8.6), change the references to 8.5 in the above to your version (e.g. 8.6).