[gdal-dev] building on macOS - fatal error: 'direct.h' file not found

[Nik Sands]

Thanks again for all the replies and advice.  I should have provided more context around my initial query about building GDAL with cmake on macOS.  So here goes… (this is quite long, so bear with me…)

My ultimate aim is to build GDAL 3.6 (not yet released) for iOS on ARM (as well as for macOS on Intel).  I can then combine them into a fat library and use that in my project (which is what I've been doing successfully for GDAL 2.2.2 for some time).  GDAL 3.6 isn't yet released, so I'm working with 3.5 for now in order to get my build process right.

I believe that for iOS, I cannot use any 'homebrew' or 'macports' packages installed in /usr/local, etc, as dependencies for the GDAL build.  They will likely work for macOS, but not for iOS.  Therefore I will need to build any dependencies manually and install to another location (for both iOS and macOS), where they do not already exist in the standard macOS/iOS SDK locations (or where the Apple-supplied libraries in those SDK locations are otherwise incompatible with GDAL - see SQLite notes below).  For any such dependencies, I plan to install them in ~/build (as I did previously for GDAL 2.2.2).

So I'm starting out building simply for macOS, but trying to use a similar technique to what I hope to use for iOS (after I get it working for macOS).

So with all that background, I will now start at the beginning of my attempts to build GDAL 3.5 using a method that I hope will also work for iOS...

The GDAL cmake hints page says to do this:

cd gdal-{VERSION}
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .
cmake --build . --target install

When I run this as-is, the 'cmake ..' succeeds, but the 'cmake --build .' fails at the 82% mark with this output:

==========
[ 82%] Building CXX object ogr/ogrsf_frmts/sqlite/CMakeFiles/ogr_SQLite.dir/ogrsqlitedatasource.cpp.o
/Users/nsands/Documents/Development/3rdParty/GDAL3/gdal-3.5.0/ogr/ogrsf_frmts/sqlite/ogrsqlitedatasource.cpp:733:21: error: use of undeclared identifier 'sqlite3_enable_load_extension'
                if( sqlite3_enable_load_extension(hDB, 1) == SQLITE_OK )
                    ^
/Users/nsands/Documents/Development/3rdParty/GDAL3/gdal-3.5.0/ogr/ogrsf_frmts/sqlite/ogrsqlitedatasource.cpp:746:21: error: use of undeclared identifier 'sqlite3_load_extension'
                if( sqlite3_load_extension(hDB, aosExtensions[i], nullptr, &pszErrMsg) != SQLITE_OK )
                    ^
2 errors generated.
make[2]: *** [ogr/ogrsf_frmts/sqlite/CMakeFiles/ogr_SQLite.dir/ogrsqlitedatasource.cpp.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [ogr/ogrsf_frmts/sqlite/CMakeFiles/ogr_SQLite.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2
==========

So I then build SQLite manually, including the requirements that the built-in macOS SQLite seems to be missing, and install to ~/build.  Ie,

./configure SQLITE_ENABLE_RTREE=1 --prefix=/Users/{USERNAME}/build

Then I attempt to GDAL again as follows:

cd gdal-{VERSION}
rm -r build
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DSQLITE3_INCLUDE_DIR=~/build/include -DSQLITE3_LIBRARY=~/build/lib/libsqlite3.a ..


Now cmake fails with:

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "...../CMakeOutput.log".
See also "...../CMakeError.log".

The error log is fairly long, but two errors near the beginning seem to be perhaps quite significant:

ld: library not found for -lSystem

and a bit further on:

ld: library not found for -lc++

and then skipping to the end of the error log:

==========
/Users/nsands/Documents/Development/3rdParty/GDAL3/gdal-3.5.0/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeTmp/CheckSymbolExists.c:8:19: error: use of undeclared identifier '_iconv_close'; did you mean 'iconv_close'?
  return ((int*)(&_iconv_close))[argc];
                  ^~~~~~~~~~~~
                  iconv_close
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX12.3.sdk/usr/include/iconv.h:78:36: note: 'iconv_close' declared here
extern __LIBICONV_DLL_EXPORTED int iconv_close (iconv_t _cd);
                                   ^
1 error generated.
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/cmTC_825af.dir/CheckSymbolExists.c.o] Error 1
make: *** [cmTC_825af/fast] Error 2


File /Users/nsands/Documents/Development/3rdParty/GDAL3/gdal-3.5.0/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeTmp/CheckSymbolExists.c:
/* */
#include <iconv.h>

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
  (void)argv;
#ifndef _iconv_close
  return ((int*)(&_iconv_close))[argc];
#else
  (void)argc;
  return 0;
#endif
}
==========

Now if I try the following:

export LDFLAGS=-L/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/lib
export CFLAGS="-isysroot /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk"
export CCFLAGS="-isysroot /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk"
export CXXFLAGS="-isysroot /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk"
export CPPFLAGS="-isysroot /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk"
cd gdal-{VERSION}
rm -r build
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DSQLITE3_INCLUDE_DIR=~/build/include -DSQLITE3_LIBRARY=~/build/lib/libsqlite3.a ..

Then the -lsystem and -lc++ errors disappear, but the iconv errors are still there.

I’m clearly doing something quite wrong, but I’m just a hobbyist and cannot figure it out any further than this.

Thanks for bearing with me if you’ve managed to read this far.  I’d be grateful for some assistance to get this to build using cmake.

Cheers,
Nik.