Matplotlib OSX binaries

Build system for matplotlib OSX binaries

You'll need:

• OSX >=10.6 (I've tested 10.6 and 10.8, <10.6 might work, I haven't tested)

• Xcode command line tools

• git on your system path

• pkg-config on your system path. I build this from source at http://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases, using:

  ./configure --with-internal-glib
  make
  sudo make install
  

• Python.org python installed from the DMG installer. I've tested with Python 2.7 and 3.3. It might work with the system python, I haven't tried

• For each python you want to install from, a version of numpy >= the required minimum version for matplotlib. At time of writing (matplotlib v1.3.1) this was numpy 1.5

Run with:

python2.7 waf distclean configure build

where python2.7 is the python you want to build with.

The first time you run configure it will initalize the submodules, so you might need to wait a few minutes. Or run it yourself beforehand with:

git submodule update --init

When the build is done, you should have a new matplotlib*mpkg directory in build. Copy it somewhere and set permissions with something like:

sudo ./waf write_mpkg --mpkg-outpath=~/Downloads --mpkg-clobber

You'll also have a wheelhouse directory in build with .whl files for matplotlib and all its dependencies.

Updating dependencies

Some dependencies are archives, others are git submodule commits (tags usually).

To update the archives, download into the archive directory and edit the wscript file to use the new archive filename.

For git submodule commits, update the commit reference in the wscript file, then run waf refresh_submodules to pull in any necessary commits that you don't yet have in the submodules.

Patching source

You may need to patch the archive sources or the git tag. You can do this by defining a patch function to the archive / git building commands, or a patch file to apply with patch -p1 < thefile from the archive / git source. The filename is from the root directory (containing the waf binary and this README.rst). For example, this is the setup command for the freetype library:

freetype2_pkg = GPM('freetype2',
                    'VER-2-5-0-1',
                    ('cd ${SRC[0].abspath()} && '
                    './configure --prefix=${bld.bldnode.abspath()} && '
                    'make -j3 && ' # make and install have to be separate
                    'make -j3 install'), # I have no idea why
                    patcher = 'patches/freetype2/VER-2-5-0-1.patch',
                    after = ['bzip2.build', 'libpng.build'])

GPM is the Git Package Manager class, VER-2-5-0-1 is the git tag, followed by the build rule, followed by the patch file to apply. GPM code is in wafutils.py in the root directory. FPM is the equivalent class for managing file archives.

See _write_setup_cfg for an example of a patching callable, in this case for the matplotlib build. The callable is a build rule in waf terms.