Build Erlang R14Bx on Mac OS X Lion

Usually to build software from source on Linux or Mac OS X, you follow the pattern:

./configure
make
sudo make install

When trying this on Mac OS X Lion you’ll find that make is no longer part of the OS like it was with Snow Leopard and before. Instead, it is part of Xcode 4.1 or greater. So you need to head to the Mac App Store app and get your free copy of Xcode 4.1 (or greater) so that you’ll have make installed.

Another wrinkle, specifically for getting Erlang from source, is that there are some obscure flags you need to use with configure to get Erlang to build cleanly. This sequence works (tested on Erlang R14B03 and Lion 10.7 (11A511):

CFLAGS=-O0 ./configure --enable-darwin-64bit
make
sudo make install

Thanks to the community on the Erlang questions mailing list for collaborating on this solution. I’m just passing it along.

Erlang

mac os x

Lion