Support on MacOS?

[profmadden]

I'm running into compile trouble on Macs (the Linux version works well). Any idea if this is a Mac issue, or something with my particular system?

When building, I get:

error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_IsSafe` in crate `clib`
   --> /Users/pmadden/.cargo/registry/src/index.crates.io-6f17d22bba15001f/tcl-0.1.9/src/interp.rs:629:19
    |
629 |             clib::Tcl_IsSafe( self.as_ptr() ) != 0
    |                   ^^^^^^^^^^ not found in `clib`

error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_MakeSafe` in crate `clib`
   --> /Users/pmadden/.cargo/registry/src/index.crates.io-6f17d22bba15001f/tcl-0.1.9/src/interp.rs:653:19
    |
653 |             clib::Tcl_MakeSafe( self.as_ptr() ).code_to_result( self )
    |                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^ not found in `clib`

error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_CreateSlave` in crate `clib`
   --> /Users/pmadden/.cargo/registry/src/index.crates.io-6f17d22bba15001f/tcl-0.1.9/src/interp.rs:678:54
    |
678 |             Ok( Interpreter( Interp::from_raw( clib::Tcl_CreateSlave(
    |                                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ not found in `clib`
...

Thanks much for any insight!

[oooutlk]

These three functions were introduced in the latest verion( tcl 0.1.9). Would you please test against earlier versions to see whether it is a bug related only with v0.1.9? I don’t have any Mac machine unfortunately.

[profmadden]

Thanks for the help! Some progress, but not there yet...

There were a few other functions that were also getting griped about for tcl 0.1.9 -- the complete set is here:

error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_IsSafe` in crate `clib`
error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_MakeSafe` in crate `clib`
error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_CreateSlave` in crate `clib`
error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_GetSlave` in crate `clib`
error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_GetMaster` in crate `clib`
error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_ExposeCommand` in crate `clib`
error[E0425]: cannot find function, tuple struct or tuple variant `Tcl_HideCommand` in crate `clib`

Switching to 0.1.8 fixes the compile issue, but clib isn't able to load in the library.

Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% cargo run
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.03s
     Running `target/debug/tcltest`
The crate clib failed in probing tcl library for the crate tcl, any invocation of Tcl's C API will abort the program.
Abort
[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% more Cargo.toml
[package]
name = "tcltest"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"

# See more keys and their definitions at https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/manifest.html

[dependencies]
clib = "0.2.4"
tcl = "=0.1.8"

The Mac variant of ldd is otool; the compiled binary wasn't listing tcl, so I tried a custom build.rs script:

fn main() {
    println!("cargo:rerun-if-changed=build.rs");
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=tcl");
}

This added Tcl, that didn't seem to fix the trouble.

[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% otool -L target/debug/tcltest
target/debug/tcltest:
	/System/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.5/Tcl (compatibility version 8.5.0, current version 8.5.9)
	/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1319.0.0)
[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% cargo run
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.03s
     Running `target/debug/tcltest`
Probed for TCL
The crate clib failed in probing tcl library for the crate tcl, any invocation of Tcl's C API will abort the program.
Abort

My system has Tcl8.6, installed by homebrew, and 8.5, which I think came with the OS install. I have a few other Macs, and will try to see if there's something funky happening with Tcl version skew.

I'm not an expert on how Macs handle the libraries, and am a Rust newbie -- not sure if it helps, but I stumbled on this, and it seems relevant.

https://braindetour.com/article/20220213

I'll keep tinkering to see if I can figure it out, and if you've got suggestions for things to try, I'll give it a go. I very much appreciate the help and your work on this!

[oooutlk]

Did you installed pkg-config? If not, you can try to install it. If all goes well, the tcl crate will be compiled successfully with version 0.1.9 and without the need of custom build script.

[profmadden]

I added pkg-config, but it did not seem to change things. Compiling with tcl 0.1.9 still generates the missing functions noted above. There are no compile issues with tcl 0.1.8.

When I try to run the version compiled with 0.1.8, I get the library probing problem noted above. The compiled version is referencing the Tcl 8.5 framework that I think is part of a standard Mac OS install. I have one machine with Tcl 8.6 installed through homebrew (with dylibs that are in obvious locations), so I'm trying to get cargo to select that instead.

The probing of the Mac library is where things seem to go sideways right now, and I'm seeing similar troubles on other applications; not something unique to Tcl or Rust. I'll keep tinkering, to see if I can figure out a fix.

[profmadden]

Learning a bit about Mac libraries. The Tcl8.5 that is installed is in /System/Library/Frameworks, which is protected on a Mac (and seems to be the strongly preferred library). I compiled Tcl8.6 from source, and that installs in /Library/Frameworks.

When the Rust program compiles and runs, it seems like it links to the /System/Library version of 8.5, even though there's a higher version number in /Library. It looks like clib is expecting 8.6, which may be why the probing fails. I'm sure there's a way to get the compiler/linker to choose the 8.6 version of Tcl from /Library/Frameworks, but I have not found it yet.

Disabling Tcl8.5 will require rebooting into recovery mode (to avoid MacOS system integrity protection); it seems like an extreme step, and there's got to be a more straight-forward way to do it.

[oooutlk]

Yes tcl/tk crates are expecting v8.6, which is the latest release. To use v8.5, you can replace 8.6/86 with 8.5/85 in tcl/Cargo.toml.

By the way, your building of tcl 0.1.8 was failed too. The reason that it seems to be done is for_docs.rs. The building process will faill if this file does not exist.

Tcl 0.1.9 has its own issue. I forgot to put newly added functions in for_docs.rs, which is ensuring the doc generating, even without native libraries probed.

Perhaps I need to add more diagnostics in crate clib to help users locating the failure of building.

[profmadden]

A bit more digging on this; it all seems to be very much a MacOS related problem. Hopefully what I've found is useful.

The Tcl 8.5 frameworks in /System/Library are part of the OS distribution, and are locked down security-wise. I rebooted into recovery mode and poked around, but it seems like there's no way to change these. I can understand the security policy; annoying, but logical.

The compiler tool chains grab the system frameworks, even if there's a newer version of a framework in /Library (which is the user-accessible folder). There might be some environment variables or flags that will change this, but I have not found them. I can add the /Library folder to the search path, but it seems like /System/Library gets used first. There are a couple of layers that make it hard to see what happens and why -- the Cargo toolchain is non-trivial, and that's on top of the clang toolchain.

I'm able to modify the framework that the compiled binary refers to with install_name_tool, but it still seems to find the old 8.5 version. Initially, the binary refers to the system library; I'm able to update it to point to 8.6, note the compatibility version info doesn't change(?!).

[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% otool -L target/debug/tcltest
target/debug/tcltest:
	/System/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.5/Tcl (compatibility version 8.5.0, current version 8.5.9)
	/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1319.0.0)
[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% install_name_tool -change /System/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.5/Tcl /Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.6/Tcl target/debug/tcltest
[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% otool -L target/debug/tcltest
target/debug/tcltest:
	/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.6/Tcl (compatibility version 8.5.0, current version 8.5.9)
	/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1319.0.0)
[Rocinante-2:optimal/tcltest/tcltest] pmadden% target/debug/tcltest 
The crate clib failed in probing tcl library for the crate tcl, any invocation of Tcl's C API will abort the program.
Abort

I could try to downgrade your code to use 8.5, but this seems like a step in the wrong direction. Tcl 8.6 was released in 2012, and it's available everywhere else. The right solution would involve Apple upgrading to 8.6, but that seems unlikely. When you probe for the Tcl library -- where does that happen in your code? I found where the error message is generated, but not the call that triggers it. W/O a Mac, it's probably not something that you'll be able to debug, but I can give it a go.

Thanks again for the help, very much appreciated.