can’t install perl module Glib on OS X (El Capitan) - macos

Question

I want to install perl Gtk2, and for this I need first to have Glib installed. I tried sudo cpanm Glib, but I get an error when compiling (I also tried downloading the .tar.gz source etc., with the same effect). I also tried with an older version of Glib. I’m on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). Here’s the error :
error: '_GStaticAssertCompileTimeAssertion_0' declared as an array with a negative size
I don’t know how to fix it… Thanks a lot if anyone can do something for me !
(BTW, brew install glib works fine, but it seems the app that I’m trying to build and run — auto-multiple-choice, for instance — is looking for a Gtk2.pm somewhere. So, the ‘glib’ installed by Homebrew is of no help.)
Benjamin
p.-s. : below is the complete log, if it helps :
cpanm (App::cpanminus) 1.7042 on perl 5.018002 built for darwin-thread-multi-2level
Work directory is /Users/benjamin/.cpanm/work/1474765262.7331
You have make /usr/bin/make
You have LWP 6.05
You have /usr/bin/tar: bsdtar 2.8.3 - libarchive 2.8.3
You have /usr/bin/unzip
Searching Glib () on cpanmetadb ...
--> Working on Glib
Fetching http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/X/XA/XAOC/Glib-1.322.tar.gz
-> OK
Unpacking Glib-1.322.tar.gz
Entering Glib-1.322
Checking configure dependencies from META.json
Checking if you have ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.58 ... Yes (6.66)
Checking if you have ExtUtils::PkgConfig 1.000 ... Yes (1.15)
Checking if you have ExtUtils::Depends 0.300 ... Yes (0.306)
Configuring Glib-1.322
Running Makefile.PL
Including generated API documentation...
Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good
Writing Makefile for Glib
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json
-> OK
Checking dependencies from MYMETA.json ...
Checking if you have ExtUtils::Depends 0.300 ... Yes (0.306)
Checking if you have ExtUtils::PkgConfig 1.000 ... Yes (1.15)
Checking if you have ExtUtils::MakeMaker 0 ... Yes (6.66)
Building and testing Glib-1.322
cp lib/Glib/CodeGen.pm blib/lib/Glib/CodeGen.pm
cp /Users/benjamin/.cpanm/work/1474765262.7331/Glib-1.322/typemap blib/arch/Glib/Install/typemap
cp lib/Glib/ParseXSDoc.pm blib/lib/Glib/ParseXSDoc.pm
cp doctypes blib/arch/Glib/Install/doctypes
cp devel.pod blib/lib/Glib/devel.pod
cp gperl_marshal.h blib/arch/Glib/Install/gperl_marshal.h
cp lib/Glib/MakeHelper.pm blib/lib/Glib/MakeHelper.pm
cp gperl.h blib/arch/Glib/Install/gperl.h
cp lib/Glib.pm blib/lib/Glib.pm
cp lib/Glib/Object/Subclass.pm blib/lib/Glib/Object/Subclass.pm
cp build/IFiles.pm blib/arch/Glib/Install/Files.pm
cp lib/Glib/GenPod.pm blib/lib/Glib/GenPod.pm
[ XS Glib.xs ]
[ CC Glib.c ]
In file included from Glib.xs:22:
In file included from ./gperl.h:37:
In file included from /usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.48.2/include/glib-2.0/glib-object.h:23:
In file included from /usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.48.2/include/glib-2.0/gobject/gbinding.h:28:
In file included from /usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.48.2/include/glib-2.0/glib.h:30:
In file included from /usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.48.2/include/glib-2.0/glib/galloca.h:32:
/usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.48.2/include/glib-2.0/glib/gtypes.h:422:3: error: '_GStaticAssertCompileTimeAssertion_0' declared as an array with a negative size
G_STATIC_ASSERT(sizeof (unsigned long long) == sizeof (guint64));
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.48.2/include/glib-2.0/glib/gmacros.h:232:103: note: expanded from macro 'G_STATIC_ASSERT'
#define G_STATIC_ASSERT(expr) typedef char G_PASTE (_GStaticAssertCompileTimeAssertion_, __COUNTER__)[(expr) ? 1 : -1] G_GNUC_UNUSED
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make: *** [Glib.o] Error 1
-> FAIL Installing Glib failed. See
/Users/benjamin/.cpanm/work/1474765262.7331/build.log for details. Retry with --force to force install it.

Answer 1

This was posted to a GitHub issue.
I tracked down the problem by running:
cpanm --verbose --build-args=NOECHO=' ' Glib
so that I could see the specific compilation command that failed:
cc -c -I. -I/usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.50.0/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.50.0/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/local/opt/gettext/include -I/usr/local/Cellar/pcre/8.39/include -D_REENTRANT -arch x86_64 -arch i386 -g -pipe -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -fno-strict-aliasing -fstack-protector -Os -DVERSION=\"1.323\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.323\" -o Glib.o "-I/System/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE" Glib.c
Since the problem was something to do with mismatching sizeof's, I figured that the problem was that the architecture that Perl was building with does not the architecture that Homebrew's libglib-2.0 was built against.
The fix is to specify that you only want to build for x86_64 by setting the ARCHFLAGS environment variable:
ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" cpanm --verbose Glib
This is all using the system Perl. If you want the install to work in the long run across system upgrades, you will want to install your own user Perl using either perlbrew or plenv.

Answer 2

I ran into the same issue.
Installing gtk+ as a prerequisite fixed it.