Graphviz:build - chunhualiao/public-docs GitHub Wiki

default build

cmake .. \
  -DENABLE_PLUGIN_SUPPORT=ON \
  -DBISON_EXECUTABLE=/opt/homebrew/bin/bison \
  -DWITH_ANN=OFF \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(pwd)/../local-install \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang++ \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-stdlib=libc++"

Turn on test suite

cmake .. \
  -DENABLE_PLUGIN_SUPPORT=ON \
  -DBISON_EXECUTABLE=/opt/homebrew/bin/bison \
  -DWITH_ANN=OFF \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/local-install \
  -Dwith_cxx_api=ON \
  -Dwith_cxx_tests=ON \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=20 \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang++ \
  -DRAPIDXML_INCLUDE_DIR=$(pwd)/rapidxml \
  -DSVGPP_INCLUDE_DIR=$(pwd)/svgpp \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-stdlib=libc++"

Appendix: Building and Running GraphViz Dot on macOS

A.1 Problems Encountered When Building GraphViz from Source

During the process of building GraphViz's dot program from source on a Mac (Apple Silicon, macOS), several issues were encountered:

Missing Output Formats: After building, running dot would fail with errors like Format: "png" not recognized. No formats found. Perhaps "dot -c" needs to be run (with installer's privileges) to register the plugins?
Plugins Not Found: The required plugin shared libraries (libgvplugin_*.dylib) were not found by the binary, even though they were built.
CMake/Bison Version: The build process required Bison ≥ 3.0, but macOS ships with an older version. CMake would fail unless the correct Bison was installed and explicitly specified.
ANN Library: The build system attempted to find the ANN (Approximate Nearest Neighbors) library, which is not available via Homebrew. This can be disabled with -DWITH_ANN=OFF.
Avoiding System Path Pollution: To avoid installing into /usr/local, a custom install prefix was used.

A.2 Solutions and Workarounds

Install Required Dependencies:

brew install pkg-config cairo pango libpng gd bison catch2

Link Homebrew Bison:
```
brew link bison --force --overwrite
```

Configure and Build with CMake:

rm -rf build
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. \
  -DENABLE_PLUGIN_SUPPORT=ON \
  -DBISON_EXECUTABLE=/opt/homebrew/bin/bison \
  -DWITH_ANN=OFF \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/local-install
make -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)
make install

Set Environment Variables When Running Locally:

The dot binary and plugins are not in system paths, so you must set:

export GV_PLUGIN_PATH=/path/to/local-install/lib/graphviz
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/local-install/lib/graphviz

Run the Local Dot Binary:

$GV_PLUGIN_PATH/dot input.dot -o output.png

Or, for benchmarking:

GV_PLUGIN_PATH=/path/to/local-install/lib/graphviz \
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/local-install/lib/graphviz \
/path/to/local-install/bin/dot input.dot -o output.png

Script Integration:
When using scripts (e.g., benchmark_fixed_nodes.sh), ensure environment variables are set before the command, not after time or other wrappers.

A.3 Key Lessons for macOS Builds

Always use the Homebrew version of Bison and specify its path to CMake.
Disable ANN if not needed.
Use a custom install prefix to avoid polluting system directories.
Set GV_PLUGIN_PATH and DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH to the plugin directory when running locally.
If you see "No formats found" or plugin errors, check that the environment variables are set and that you are using the installed binary, not the build directory binary.
When benchmarking, ensure the environment is set up in the script or shell.

Enabling and Running the Test Suite

To build and run the C++ test suite with CMake:

Enable tests during configuration:
```
cmake .. -Dwith_cxx_tests=ON
```
Build the tests:
```
make
```
Run the tests:
```
ctest
```

If you see No tests were found!!!, make sure you configured with -Dwith_cxx_tests=ON when running CMake.