I am doing maintenance for Graphviz on MacPorts, trying to update from version 12, to current version 14.0.2. Part of the build is in effect, a stand-alone Autotools build of gvedit. This error hits when linking the executable. ld: library 'util_C' not found I see that a few references from gvedi…

@smattr Under autotools, Graphviz is a single unified build for all configured options. MacPorts tries to do something unintended. It splits the build into one core build, plus two other stand-alone builds including gvedit. This split was done long ago, possibly to isolate the graphviz core from …

I came upon this topic and wanted to check what the matter is, but it turned out I don’t know how to run gvedit (on Linux). @dallured or somebody? Do I have to build Graphviz with some option? man gvedit gives No manual entry for gvedit (I know that there’s the man page cmd/gvedit/gvedit.1), ./…

On-line manual, very brief: gvedit | Graphviz It says that this will display some usage instructions. I added the quoting which is necessary for your Linux command line: gvedit '-?' I do not have enough experience to explain how to build gvedit on Linux. For MacPorts, I am working on someone el…

After studying the makefiles some more, it looks like libutil_C has exotic structure. Therefore I think my path of least resistance is to completely sidestep that library and dependency issues, and insert an isolated source compile of lib/util/gv_find_me.c directly into the makefile for gvedit. An…

After studying the makefiles some more, it looks like libutil_C has exotic structure. No, I was mistaken. In Graphviz, libutil_C.a is created by the ar command, which I was not expecting.

I don’t immediately know what the root cause is. But it surprises me that the build jumps immediately into building gvedit. How are any of the dependencies ready? Can we see your patches?

[image] decision-making-mike: I came upon this topic and wanted to check what the matter is, but it turned out I don’t know how to run gvedit (on Linux). Just to note, I’ve created a separate topic for that problem: How to run gvedit?

@smattr It is fair to say that Graphviz does not currently support a stand-alone build of gvedit with Autotools. I don’t know about Cmake; I did not try it. If you want to add this for Autotools, then my patch above is hackish, therefore not appropriate for general distribution. I suggest either …

Ah I see. Your patch is a modification to an existing Macports patch . I guess this works. But I’m still puzzled what the motivation for this is. Why not adjust the patch to leave the libutil_C dependency in place, which would hopefully then result in its being built prior to gvedit? Surely this wou…

@smattr Yes that would be more robust than my link-to-source trick. However, as I mentioned earlier, MacPorts is treating libutil_C.a as a temporary file, and discarding it between major build stages. It might be possible to change this behavior, but currently I do not know how to do that. I wil…

In essence, I am asking for stand-alone build capability for gvedit. The usage scenario is to first build Graphviz with core features. Then add gvedit later, if or when wanted, and after certain dependencies (such as Qt) may have been solved.

Gvedit: library 'util_C' not found

Dev

decision-making-mike November 6, 2025, 4:56pm 8

Just to note, I’ve created a separate topic for that problem: How to run gvedit?

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Gvedit: library 'util_C' not found

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