Building emacs 29 from repository on M1 macOS with native compilation

Question

I did brew install libgccjit and then I did make configure="--with-native-compilation" and it died with:

checking for libgccjit.h... yes
configure: error: The installed libgccjit failed to compile and run a test program using
the libgccjit library; see config.log for the details of the failure.
The test program can be found here:
<https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/jit/intro/tutorial01.html>.
You can try compiling it yourself to investigate the issues.
Please report the issue to your distribution if libgccjit was installed
through that.
You can find the instructions on how to compile and install libgccjit from
source on this site:
<https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/JIT>.
make: *** [Makefile] Error 1

I downloaded the sample program and was finally able to get it to compile with gcc -I/opt/homebrew/include tut01-hello-world.c -o tut01-hello-world -lgccjit -L/opt/homebrew/lib/gcc/12 but then when I try to run it I get:

./tut01-hello-world 
ld: library not found for -lemutls_w
libgccjit.so: error: error invoking gcc driver
NULL result%                

I find libemutls_w down /opt/homebrew/Cellar/gcc/12.2.0/lib/gcc/current/gcc/aarch64-apple-darwin21/12 but I have no idea how to alter the library search path of an executable on macOS. And... I'm not sure that is the right method to address this issue.

I see on here a year ago got it to work for emacs-28 but they used brew. The last time I tried brew's emacs, it didn't build the native macOS version so I've been building it via the tar ball and without native compilation.

I figure the first step is to get the tut01-hello-world to execute and then figure out how to get Emacs to compile and run.

Answer 1

Sounds like there is maybe something wrong with your compiler chain.

% brew install gcc
% brew install libgccjit
% brew install autoconf
% brew install automake
% git clone https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs.git
% cd emacs
% autoreconf -isvf
% ./configure --with-native-compilation
% make -j10
% make check

worksforme. (mostly, 4 test failures from make check)

I haven't seen any verifiable, reproducible benchmarks that demonstrate a tangible benefit to native compilation. In my own light trials when it was new, I found no benefit from it when daily driving Emacs on my 2013 MBP. Everyone's needs are different though.

That being said if you want native binaries, Homebrew does install native binaries for Emacs. brew install emacs installs native binaries from the bottle. brew install --build-from-source emacs builds and installs native binaries. brew install --HEAD emacs builds and installs native binaries. brew install homebrew/cask/emacs (ie. https://emacsformacosx.com/) installs native binaries, but you have to tweak some symlinks in order to use the native ancillary programs (emacsclinet, etags, etc.)

If you have to have native compilation, there are taps available as documented at https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GccEmacs.

$ brew tap jimeh/emacs-builds
$ brew install --cask emacs-app-nightly-28

Or:

$ brew tap d12frosted/emacs-plus
$ brew install emacs-plus@28 --with-native-comp

I haven't looked, but I would assume that these taps also provide native binaries.