configure: error: Building GCC requires GMP 4.2+, MPFR 2.3.1+ and MPC 0.8.0+

Question

I am attempting to build GCC-4.7.0 on a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.7.4. However, I am continuing to experience the same error:

configure: error: Building GCC requires GMP 4.2+, MPFR 2.3.1+ and MPC 0.8.0+.

This error occurred after running the following line:

./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/

To get rid of this error I have tried the following actions:

• Using homebrew I downloaded gmp-5.0.4, mpc-0.21, and mpfr-3.1.0. At this point I attempting to point to where gmp, mpc, and mpfr are located with the following command:

  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/     --with-gmp=/usr/local/Cellar/ --with-mpfr=/usr/local/Cellar/ --with-mpc=/usr/local/Cellar/
  

  However, this caused the same error. So, I tried pointing gcc to various locations around the Cellar directory:

  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/ --with-gmp=/usr/local/Cellar/gmp/ --with-mpfr=/usr/local/Cellar/mpfr --with-mpc=/usr/local/Cellar/mpc/
  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/ --with-gmp=/usr/local/Cellar/gmp/5.0.4/ --with-mpfr=/usr/local/Cellar/mpfr/3.1.0/ --with-mpc=/usr/local/Cellar/mpc/0.21/
  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/ --with-gmp=/usr/local/Cellar/gmp/5.0.4/include/ --with-mpfr=/usr/local/Cellar/mpfr/3.1.0/include/ --with-mpc=/usr/local/Cellar/mpc/0.21/share/
  

  In the end these all produced the same error. I then downloaded the versions of gmp, mpc, and mpfr linked from the gcc error message (found here: ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/infrastructure/). After building these from the source and running all the same configurations I am left with the same problem. The configurations I have tried with this installation are:

  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/
  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/ --with-gmp=/usr/local/ --with-mpfr=/usr/local/ --with-mpc=/usr/local/
  ./configure --prefix=/Users/jreese/Documents/school/edinburgh/project/local/ --with-gmp=/usr/local/include/ --with-mpfr=/usr/local/include/ --with-mpc=/usr/local/include/
  

Then I read somewhere that there could be a problem if I didn't explicitly set the configuration to run in 64-bit mode. So, I tried all of these configurations again with the added setting of 'CC=gcc -m64'. But this didn't change anything. If anyone has any ideas I would be greatly appreciative.

Answer 1

If you don't know how to build and properly direct GCC's configure to the libraries you can put them in the source tree of GCC itself:

/some/dir/source/gcc/[libstdc++|libgomp|gcc|libiberty|....] /some/dir/source/gcc/gmp/[configure|...] /some/dir/source/gcc/mpfr/[configure|...] /some/dir/source/gcc/mpc/[configure|...]

So without the version number appended. Then just run GCC configure without any arguments related to GMP/MPC/MPFR.

Answer 2

I've faced the same issue and it was easily solved by installing the corresponding development packages: gmp-devel, mpfr-devel and libmpc-devel

• Yigal

Answer 3

EasyBuild (a tool to make building software easier) can be of help here. It comes with a small easyconfig file that specifies which GCC version to build, and which features to enable (see for example https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/blob/master/easybuild/easyconfigs/g/GCC/GCC-4.7.0.eb).

Once you've downloaded EasyBuild and configured it, you can just run

$EBHOME/easybuild.sh myGCC.eb

with EBHOME set to the location where you unpacked EasyBuild, and myGCC.eb a copy of the example GCC easyconfig, which you modified to your needs.

This command will download the GCC source tarball for you and build/install it, after doing the same to any dependencies, for example GMP, MPFR and MPC, saving you a lot of headaches.

For more information on EasyBuild, see https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki .