Build GRASS GIS with Anaconda

This is a script package for nearly automated build of GRASS GIS as a macOS application bundle (GRASS-x.x.app).

The building script build-grass.sh will do all the steps – creating App bundle, installing Conda dependencies (using the package manager Mambaforge), to patching, compiling and installing GRASS GIS – to end up with an installed GRASS.app in /Applications. It can also create a compressed dmg file if so wished.

Usage:

./build-grass.sh [arguments]

Arguments:
  -g
  --grassdir    [path]  GRASS GIS source directory, spaces in path not allowed.
  -s
  --sdk         [path]  MacOS SDK - full path, spaces in path not allowed.
  -t
  --target    [target]  Set deployment target version (MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET),
                        e.g. "10.14", optional, default is set from SDK.
  -o
  --dmg-out-dir [path]  Output directory path for DMG file creation
                        This is a requirement for creating .dmg files.
  -c
  --conda-file  [path]  Conda package requirement file, optional.
  --with-liblas         Include libLAS support, optional, default is no support.
  -u
  --update-conda-stable Update the stable explicit conda requirement file. This
                        is only allowed if conda-requirements-dev-[arm64|x86_64].txt
                        is used (with --conda-file), to keep the two files in sync.
  -r
  --repackage           Recreate dmg file from previously built app,
                        setting [-o | --dmg-out-dir] is a requirement.
  -h
  --help                Usage information.

Requirements

• Apple's Command Line Tools
• GRASS GIS source code repository (preferably a git repo)
• This (grass-conda) script package

You need to install Apple's Command Line Tools (CLT), with or without Xcode. Installing CLT is possible with following terminal command:

xcode-select --install

Xcode is available for download at Apple's App Store.

CLT will typically install SDKs in /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/, while finding Xcode's default SDK can be achieved with e.g. xcrun --show-sdk-path. (See man xcrun for more functions.)

Note: Compiling GRASS (c/c++ based) addon extensions with the resulting GRASS.app requires CLT installation too.

Instructions

Fork or download this grass-conda repository to local disk and make sure you have the GRASS GIS source directory on local disk too.

If GRASS source directory is a git repo, you can checkout the branch/release you want to build. At present the master and releasebranch_7_8 branches, and the 7.8.5 release is supported, e.g.:

cd [grass-source-dir]

# for 8.0.dev
git checkout master

# for 7.8.6dev
git checkout releasebranch_7_8

# for 7.8.5 release
git checkout 7.8.5

There are currently two required variables needed to be set either through editing the configure-build.sh file, or by giving them as arguments to the main script: ./build-grass.sh.

Argument given to ./build-grass.sh will override settings in configure-build.sh. You can also do ./build-grass.sh --help for info on possible configurations.

Required settings:

• SDK full path to the SDK that will be set to -isysroot (path may not contain spaces)
• GRASSDIR full path to the GRASS GIS source directory (path may not contain spaces)

Example with using settings in configure-build.sh:

./build-grass.sh

Example with executing with arguments:

./build-grass.sh \
  --grassdir /Volumes/dev/grass \
  --sdk /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk \
  --target 10.14

Example of building and creating dmg with executing with arguments:

~/scripts/grass-conda/build-grass.sh \
  --grassdir /Volumes/dev/grass \
  --sdk /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk \
  --conda-file ./Desktop/requirement.txt \
  --dmg-out-dir ~/Desktop

Build Target Architecture

Building GRASS on a x86_64 (Intel) machine can create a binary only for the x86_64 architecture. On a Apple silicon based machine a binary can be created for either x86_64 or arm64 (creating Universal Binary is at the moment not possible).

The building target architecture depends ultimately on the result of uname -m in the Terminal running the build-grass.sh script. Building on Apple silicon machines, opening the Terminal in Rosetta mode, creates a x86_64 binary.

Settings

By default a conda environment will be created by an explicit conda requirement file (default/conda-requirements-dev-[arm64|x86_64].txt). It was created by executing conda list --explicit on an environment created by the file default/conda-requirements-dev-[arm64|x86_64].txt. This enables reproducibility and stability. It is also possible to use a customized conda requirement file, set as an argument (or in configure-build.sh).

To be able to bump dependency versions and/or add/remove dependencies for the default/conda-requirements-stable.txt file the command flag --update-conda-stable can be added. A requirement for this is that default/conda-requirements-dev.txt is used for --conda-file. This function is primarily intended to be used for updating this git repo.

GRASS configure settings are set in default/configure-grass.sh. Changes to that file should reflect settings of conda environment.