How to compile fortran code to run without gfortran installed

Question

I have downloaded Bellhop, which is an underwater acoustic simulator written in Fortran. It can be found here with the Makefile.

Question 1: I would like to know if it is possible to compile Fortran code, including everything needed, so a user without gfortran installed, can run it.

I have read here the following:

static linking This section does not apply to Windows users, except for Cygwin users with gcc4-4.3.2-2 or later. gfortran is composed of two main parts: the compiler, which creates the executable program from your code, and the library, which is used when you run your program afterwards. That explains why, if gfortran is installed in a non-standard directory, it may compile your code fine but the executable may fail with an error message like library not found. One way to avoid this (more ideas can be found on the binaries page) is to use the so-called "static linking", available with option -static gfortran then put the library code inside the program created, thus enabling it to run without the library present (like, on a computer where gfortran is not installed). Complete example is:

gfortran -static myfile.f -o program.exe

Reading this, I suppose that it is possible to do what I'm asking but I'm not very familiarized with fortran and makefiles. I don't understand this:

put the library code inside the program created

Question 2: How can I put the library code inside the program? Where can I find the library? What does "inside the program" means?

I'm running OSX 10.9.4 and gfortran

Answer 1

I solved my problem about compiling Fortran code with gfortran using static libraries. As @M.S.B. said, using static-libgfortran worked for me under MacOS.

If somebody is having issues with linking the libquadmath.0.dylb library, remove libquadmath.0.dylib and libquadmath.dylib from /usr/local/gfortran/lib/

This doest the trick. Further information can be found here

Answer 2

I think the meaning of the bold part is actually

gfortran then puts the library code inside the program created

That means using -static should be enough, there is no additional step. Just be advised you will need a static version of all the libraries that you link with.

Answer 3

I know this is very old tracker, but maybe somebody will be still interested in the solution that works.

Let's say we have code:

! fort_sample.f90
program main
  write (*,*) 'Hello'
  stop
end

First, compile the stuff:

gfortran -c -o fort_sample.o fort_sample.f90

Then, link stuff

ld -o ./fort_sample -no_compact_unwind \
-arch x86_64 -macosx_version_min 10.12.0 \
-lSystem \
/usr/local/gfortran/lib/libgfortran.a \
/usr/local/gfortran/lib/libquadmath.a \
/usr/local/gfortran/lib/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin16/6.3.0/libgcc.a \
fort_sample.o

You can execute it

./fort_sample
 Hello

You can notice that quadmath is no longer there

> otool -L fort_sample
fort_sample:
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1238.51.1)

I guess this is what you were looking for in a first place. No removing dylibs, no symbolic links, etc.

Answer 4

The current version of the option is -static-libgfortran. This means that the Fortran specific libraries of gfortran will be included into the executable. These are libraries are automatically found for a good installation of gfortran. This should produce an executable that should run on other computers with the same OS, even if that computer doesn't have gfortran installed. This option likely doesn't statically link all libraries, so there is some risk that some other shared library used on your computer won't be available on the other computer.