MacPorts, Xcode, gnuplot

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [Computer Science] Blog]


Problems on a Mac OS X 10.5:

P1: One needs to install on Mac OS X commands like calc, wget (although Mac offers the equivalent curl) etc.

P2: One needs to install gnuplot (wikipedia on gnuplot), but would prefer not to go through all the steps (i.e. configure, compile etc.) with the source code of gnuplot.

Solution:

First, install MacPorts. According to Wikipedia, DarwinPorts has become MacPorts - I recommend the easiest installation possible, i.e. Mac OS X Package (.pkg) Installer.

Second, get familiarized to using MacPorts, by reading that specific part of the manual describing the port command.

From now on, you should install the piece of software causing your problem:


P1: calc, wget etc.
sudo port install calc
sudo port install wget 


P2: gnuplot (It will be installed in the same way as above, but I encountered a few problems)

When I first tried to install it, I encountered an error:
On Mac OS X 10.5, gnuplot 4.2.5 requires Xcode 3.1 or later but you have Xcode 3.0.
Error: Target org.macports.extract returned: incompatible Xcode version
Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

, so I cleaned the failed installation:
port clean --all gnuplot

Given the error, I uninstalled Xcode 3.0 (pages on uninstalling Xcode: 1, 2, 3) and installed Xcode 3.1.4 which I've downloaded from Apple.

Then I ran the selfupdate for MacPorts

sudo port selfupdate

and checked for outdated ports

port outdated

but there weren't any, so there was no need to upgrade any installed ports.

Should you find any outdated ports, just run (as it recommends when finds those outdated ports)
sudo port upgrade outdated
You can also use the other command, which tries to upgrade all installed ports
sudo port upgrade installed

Then I finally installed gnuplot

sudo port install gnuplot

in order to upgrade all your installed ports and their dependencies.

Feel free to check its man page, or type gnuplot in terminal etc.

End.