MacOS – I can’t get gcc to compile DevIL library

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I'm writing an OpenGL application in C++ using Xcode 4 on Lion. To load textures, and keep the application platform independent, I plan on using DevIL.

To install DevIL on my mac I ran ./configure and noticed gcc was no longer on the $PATH. I created a symlink from /Developer/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 to /usr/bin. Then I re-ran ./configure, it now finds gcc but fails with this:

checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... 
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

I'm not sure what this means:

  • Shouldn't I have symlinked gcc?
  • Do I need another gcc?
  • Is the problem DevIL related?

Thanks in advance

Best Answer

As for your first question: The cleaner alternative to symlinking would be to add /Developer/usr/bin to your $PATH, so the other utilities needed for compilation can be found. That's easy to do:

export PATH=$PATH:/Developer/usr/bin

You could put that into ~/.profile so the path get set each time you open a terminal window.

And I'm certainly not a GCC/LLVM expert, but to me it seems like DevIL's configure script does expect a different version of gcc, one which doesn't expect an argument to the -V switch. My best bet would be to ask around on the DevIL developer's mailing list, as there probably are people who have been confronted with the same problem.

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