MacOS fails to configure LLVM as static

[ZeunO8]

Trying to get LLVM compiling as a static build

The configure command I am using is

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja \
 -DLLVM_BUILD_STATIC=ON \
 -DLLVM_LINK_LLVM_DYLIB=OFF \
 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Configure fails to find a bunch of required unistd.h symbols, as well as other header functions also.

Here is the configure output

-- The C compiler identification is AppleClang 16.0.0.16000026
-- The CXX compiler identification is AppleClang 16.0.0.16000026
-- The ASM compiler identification is AppleClang
-- Found assembler: /usr/bin/cc
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc - skipped
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ - skipped
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- Found libtool - /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool
-- Found Python3: /opt/homebrew/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin/python3.13 (found suitable version "3.13.5", minimum required is "3.8") found components: Interpreter
-- Looking for __GLIBC__
-- Looking for __GLIBC__ - not found
-- Looking for valgrind/valgrind.h
-- Looking for valgrind/valgrind.h - not found
-- Looking for FE_ALL_EXCEPT
-- Looking for FE_ALL_EXCEPT - not found
-- Looking for FE_INEXACT
-- Looking for FE_INEXACT - not found
-- Performing Test HAVE_BUILTIN_THREAD_POINTER
-- Performing Test HAVE_BUILTIN_THREAD_POINTER - Failed
-- Looking for CrashReporterClient.h
-- Looking for CrashReporterClient.h - not found
-- Performing Test HAVE_CRASHREPORTER_INFO
-- Performing Test HAVE_CRASHREPORTER_INFO - Failed
-- Looking for pthread_create in pthread
-- Looking for pthread_create in pthread - not found
-- Looking for pthread_create in c
-- Looking for pthread_create in c - not found
-- Looking for dlopen in dl
-- Looking for dlopen in dl - not found
-- Looking for shm_open in rt
-- Looking for shm_open in rt - not found
-- Looking for pfm_initialize in pfm
-- Looking for pfm_initialize in pfm - not found
-- Found ZLIB: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/lib/libz.tbd (found version "1.2.12")
-- Looking for compress2
-- Looking for compress2 - not found
-- Found LibXml2: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/lib/libxml2.tbd (found version "2.9.13")
-- Looking for xmlReadMemory
-- Looking for xmlReadMemory - not found
-- Looking for histedit.h
-- Looking for histedit.h - not found
-- Could NOT find LibEdit (missing: LibEdit_INCLUDE_DIRS LibEdit_LIBRARIES) 
-- Looking for arc4random
-- Looking for arc4random - not found
-- Looking for backtrace
-- Looking for backtrace - not found
-- Could NOT find Backtrace (missing: Backtrace_LIBRARY) 
-- Performing Test C_SUPPORTS_WERROR_UNGUARDED_AVAILABILITY_NEW
-- Performing Test C_SUPPORTS_WERROR_UNGUARDED_AVAILABILITY_NEW - Failed
-- Looking for __register_frame
-- Looking for __register_frame - not found
-- Looking for __deregister_frame
-- Looking for __deregister_frame - not found
-- Looking for __unw_add_dynamic_fde
-- Looking for __unw_add_dynamic_fde - not found
-- Looking for _Unwind_Backtrace
-- Looking for _Unwind_Backtrace - not found
-- Looking for getpagesize
-- Looking for getpagesize - not found
-- Looking for sysconf
-- Looking for sysconf - not found
-- Looking for getrusage
-- Looking for getrusage - not found
-- Looking for isatty
-- Looking for isatty - not found
-- Looking for futimens
-- Looking for futimens - not found
-- Looking for futimes
-- Looking for futimes - not found
-- Looking for getauxval
-- Looking for getauxval - not found
-- Looking for mallctl
-- Looking for mallctl - not found
-- Looking for mallinfo
-- Looking for mallinfo - not found
-- Looking for mallinfo2
-- Looking for mallinfo2 - not found
-- Looking for malloc_zone_statistics
-- Looking for malloc_zone_statistics - not found
-- Looking for posix_spawn
-- Looking for posix_spawn - not found
-- Looking for pread
-- Looking for pread - not found
-- Looking for sbrk
-- Looking for sbrk - not found
-- Looking for strerror_r
-- Looking for strerror_r - not found
-- Looking for strerror_s
-- Looking for strerror_s - not found
-- Looking for setenv
-- Looking for setenv - not found
-- Performing Test HAVE_STRUCT_STAT_ST_MTIMESPEC_TV_NSEC
-- Performing Test HAVE_STRUCT_STAT_ST_MTIMESPEC_TV_NSEC - Failed
-- Performing Test HAVE_STRUCT_STAT_ST_MTIM_TV_NSEC
-- Performing Test HAVE_STRUCT_STAT_ST_MTIM_TV_NSEC - Failed
-- Looking for pthread_getname_np
-- Looking for pthread_getname_np - not found
-- Looking for pthread_setname_np
-- Looking for pthread_setname_np - not found
-- Looking for pthread_get_name_np
-- Looking for pthread_get_name_np - not found
-- Looking for pthread_set_name_np
-- Looking for pthread_set_name_np - not found
-- Looking for dlopen
-- Looking for dlopen - not found
-- Looking for proc_pid_rusage
-- Looking for proc_pid_rusage - not found
-- Performing Test HAVE_CXX_ATOMICS_WITHOUT_LIB
-- Performing Test HAVE_CXX_ATOMICS_WITHOUT_LIB - Failed
-- Looking for __atomic_fetch_add_4 in atomic
-- Looking for __atomic_fetch_add_4 in atomic - not found
CMake Error at cmake/modules/CheckAtomic.cmake:59 (message):
  Host compiler appears to require libatomic, but cannot find it.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  cmake/config-ix.cmake:487 (include)
  CMakeLists.txt:1041 (include)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

When configuring as a shared library, configure completes successfully (and does find all required functions, such as getpagesize):

cmake -G Ninja -B build \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=llvm-macos-arm64 \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DLLVM_BUILD_LLVM_DYLIB=ON \
  -DLLVM_BUILD_STATIC=OFF

Something is definitely broken with the static configure.

If I configure both shared and static, the configure also fails with the same output.

[efriedma-quic]

LLVM_BUILD_STATIC requests that LLVM binaries are statically linked, including libc. I don't think it's possible to build such binaries on MacOS.

There are flags for specific LLVM dependencies, like ZLIB_USE_STATIC_LIBS, if you want to reduce the number of dynamic dependencies.

[ZeunO8]

Hmm, I don't think its that it's not possible to build static libraries on MacOS, but rather a LLVM CMake configuration issue. I can build static libraries for other projects, so why would LLVM be an issue?

-- Looking for getpagesize
-- Looking for getpagesize - not found

Why would checks like these fail when building static (or shared+static), and not fail when building shared only. Also, libatomic not found?? std::atomic is built into Apple Clang

[efriedma-quic]

LLVM_BUILD_STATIC affects the link step for executables: it passes -static to the link step, which forces the linker to try to create an executable that doesn't require any dynamic libraries. It doesn't control whether LLVM libraries are static.