macOS Setup

This document describes how to install the Apache Thrift compiler on macOS using Homebrew or build it from source.

Install via Homebrew

The easiest and recommended way to install the Apache Thrift compiler on macOS is using Homebrew:

brew install thrift

Verify the installation:

thrift -version

Building from Source using Homebrew Dependencies

To build the Apache Thrift compiler from source, install the build tools using Homebrew:

brew install automake libtool pkg-config cmake bison flex

Note: The default bison binary shipped with macOS is outdated (v2.3) and incompatible with Thrift’s grammar files. Homebrew installs a newer version as keg-only, so ensure it is available in your PATH or passed explicitly.

The recipes below build only the compiler. To build the C++ library as well, add boost libevent openssl to the brew install line. With CMake, replace -DBUILD_LIBRARIES=OFF with -DWITH_JAVASCRIPT=OFF -DWITH_NODEJS=OFF -DWITH_JAVA=OFF -DWITH_PYTHON=OFF: every library whose tools CMake finds is built by default, and the JavaScript and Node.js ones run npm install without checking for Node.js first. With Autotools, drop --disable-libs and pass --without-<lang> for each other language whose tools are installed; ./configure --help lists them.

Building with CMake

cmake -B cmake-build \
  -DBISON_EXECUTABLE="$(brew --prefix bison)/bin/bison" \
  -DBUILD_LIBRARIES=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DBUILD_TUTORIALS=OFF
cmake --build cmake-build
sudo cmake --install cmake-build

Building with Autotools

export PATH="$(brew --prefix bison)/bin:$PATH"

./bootstrap.sh
./configure --disable-libs --disable-tests
make
sudo make install

Manual Dependency Installation (Alternative)

If you prefer not to use Homebrew, you can build the dependencies manually:

Install Boost

Download the Boost library from boost.org, extract and compile with:

./bootstrap.sh
sudo ./b2 threading=multi address-model=64 variant=release stage install

Install libevent

Download libevent, extract and compile with:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local 
make
sudo make install

Building Apache Thrift

Download the latest release of Apache Thrift, extract and compile with:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-boost=/usr/local --with-libevent=/usr/local
make
sudo make install

Additional reading

For more information on the requirements see: Apache Thrift Requirements

For more information on building and installing Thrift see: Building from source

This page was generated by Apache Thrift's source tree docs: doc/install/os_x.md