How to configure & package Graphviz for Mac App Store?

Question

I would like to distribute an App through the Mac App Store and will hence need to use Sandboxing. Problem is that I don't know how to configure Graphviz in a Sandbox-compatible way. Graphviz is based on plugins and requires that I:

1. Use an environment variable (GVBINDIR) to set the plugin directory. The variable has to point to a directory within the Sandbox.
2. Have a file in GVBINDIR directory location that is called config6 which is used to register plugin libraries. I could copy the file from the Name.app/Contents/Resources there.
3. Have 2 plugin dylibs in that same GVBINDIR. If I understand it correctly, then the Mach-O Linker settings have to be correctly set for the plugin library prior to deployment and in alignment with the directory.

The following screenshot is based on a run with Xcode instruments, monitoring file access, but filtering to dot_layout plugin. As you can see it is found when the app starts (I have it as dependency, you see the FD return "3" - I don't really know what that means). But later, when graphviz triggers the access to the plugin, dyld cannot find it.

What am I doing wrong?

Any ideas? Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It took me a while, but in the end I found a solution. I created a script with the following content that I place within the graphviz directory.

INSTALLER_ROOT="/Users/wizardofkneup"
GVROOT="${INSTALLER_ROOT}/graphviz"  
GVTARGET="${INSTALLER_ROOT}/Documents/xcode/VisualThinkingWorkspace/graphviz"
PLATFORM_DEVELOPER_BIN_DIR="/usr/bin"

./configure \
  --disable-dependency-tracking \
  --enable-shared=no \
  --enable-static=yes \
  --enable-ltdl=no \
  --enable-swig=no \
  --enable-tcl=no \
  -srcdir=/Users/wizardofkneup/graphviz \
  --with-codegens=no \
  --with-cgraph=yes \
  --with-expat=no \
  --with-fontconfig=no \
  --with-freetype2=no \
  --with-ipsepcola=yes \
  --with-libgd=no \
  --with-xdot=yes \
 --with-quartz=yes \
  --with-visio=yes \
   --with-x=no \
   CC="${PLATFORM_DEVELOPER_BIN_DIR}/clang" \
   CPP="${PLATFORM_DEVELOPER_BIN_DIR}/clang -E" \
   CXX="${PLATFORM_DEVELOPER_BIN_DIR}/clang++" \
   OBJC="${PLATFORM_DEVELOPER_BIN_DIR}/clang" \
   LD="${PLATFORM_DEVELOPER_BIN_DIR}/ld" 

make

rm -rf ${GVTARGET}
mkdir -p ${GVTARGET}
find . -type f -name '*_C.a' -exec cp -i {} ${GVTARGET} \;
find . -type f -name '*.h' -exec cp {} -i ${GVTARGET} \;

A few further comments:

• Use Homebrew to get the sources for graphviz. brew install --build-from-source graphviz
• copy & unzip downloaded sources from ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew into GRVIZ directory. (In my case /Users/wizardofkneup/graphviz)
• run sh autogen.sh
• compile sources with above script. It copies the files needed by your project going forward to ${GVTARGET}

Now we can focus on our Swift project within Xcode.

• Define environment variable GRVIZ, pointing at dev directory . Set header path and swift import path to ${GRVIZ}/**
• In order to have c++ standard libraries linked (needed for plugins) you need to have a empty .mm file (following walter's idea: Compile errors with C++ static library include in Swift project)
• Include all _C.a files -> we want to C interface.
• Create Builtins.c needs to be a c-file in order to avoid name mangling issues. Set this in file inspector
• For yet unknown reasons do I need both: the GRVIZ and GVTARGET directories.
• Loading the libraries: Unable to use dot layout (graphviz as a library)

It looks like current (=2019) graphviz builds have a dependency on glib. In order to have a static glib it needs to be build locally first. For that apply meson _build -Diconv=native when you build it. It might be needed to install libiconv first.

My builtins.c file:

#include "builtins.h"

extern gvplugin_library_t gvplugin_dot_layout_LTX_library;
extern gvplugin_library_t gvplugin_neato_layout_LTX_library;
extern gvplugin_library_t gvplugin_core_LTX_library;
extern gvplugin_library_t gvplugin_quartz_LTX_library;
extern gvplugin_library_t gvplugin_visio_LTX_library;

void loadGraphvizLibraries(GVC_t *gvc) {
    gvAddLibrary(gvc, &gvplugin_dot_layout_LTX_library);
    gvAddLibrary(gvc, &gvplugin_neato_layout_LTX_library);
    gvAddLibrary(gvc, &gvplugin_core_LTX_library);
    gvAddLibrary(gvc, &gvplugin_quartz_LTX_library);
    gvAddLibrary(gvc, &gvplugin_visio_LTX_library);
}

My builtins.h file:

#ifndef builtins_h
#define builtins_h

#include "/Users/wizardofkneup/graphviz/lib/gvc/gvplugin.h" //
#include "gvc.h"

extern lt_symlist_t lt_preloaded_symbols[];
void loadGraphvizLibraries(GVC_t *gvc);

#endif /* builtins_h */

the app's Bridging-header.h

#include <gvc.h>
#import "builtins.h"

And the configuration in Xcode.

I needed later on this one: not sure whether that was graphviz related.

I hope this helps. Good luck. Let me know if I missed something.