Palo Community Forum

It should be possible (and has been done in the past) to fetch the Palo Server sources form SourceForge and compile then to run on the Mac. However, the client-side Excel Add-in is Windows only.

Your only Mac client-side options would be either to use OpenOffice which has the http://sourceforge.net/projects/palooca/ Palo extension or to use the JPalo client/web-based interfaces.

Tom

the smallest palo-bundle consists of

a server
given that OSX is UNIX-like I see good chances that you can build the server executable from the source

and
an Excel client
this is .net and I doubt it will run on your OS or even be buildable from the sources

you can try Open Office with the PaloOCA-Addin on the client - the functionality exposed by this OO-Plugin is quite limited compared to the Excel-Addin

No, you'll need the server side too, but that doesn't need to be on the same machine as the client so you can install it on Linux or Windows. If you wish both server and client to be Mac based you will have to compile your own version of the server under MacOS.

Tom

It is certainly possible to run Palo on OSX, I have personally compiled both version 2 and 3 on the mac. In fact I succeeded in getting version 3 up and running this weekend. Version 2 was pretty much straight forward and just compiled (I think I had to upgrade Bison and that was it). Version 3 was a different matter and took more work, in fact there were quite a few expletives in the normally pleasant Surrey air on this occasion.
Unfortunately I did not write down every single step I had to take. However fear not, since I actually have two mac's and was intending on repeating and more importantly documenting the process this coming weekend. So if you can wait a week I should be able to provide all the required steps to make it work.

In a nut shell you need to check out the code from the subversion repository on sourceforge. However unfortunately life isn't quite so simple. In addition you need to install the Boost libraries and in particular the thread library of boost. Whilst the majority of boost is in effect a header file the thread library is not and so needs slightly special treatment.

You will need to set some environment variables (LD_FLAG and CPPFLAGS) so that configure can find the boost libraries and create an effective makefile. If you omit this stage the build will fail because the linker will not being able to find these dependancies.

When compiling the code I have found there is an error in one of cpp files, which you need to edit. Also for some reason make was not specifying the -l option for the thread library, so I had to include this manually.

When you have finally compiled the code, you need to copy a Data directory from another installation (just take it from a windows or Linux zip file from the Jedox site)

Apologies I didn't read the full thread and have only just realized you only need a client.

The JPalo RCP is a nice client. Unfortunately there is no download for OSX on the JPalo site, however making it work is really simple.

Goto the eclipse website and download the Java EE version.

Unzip the eclipse program.

Download the windows or linux version of the JPalo client and extract it.
Copy all the files which begin com.tensegrity from the JPalo client plugins folder to the respective folder in you eclipse install.

Copy the folders within the features directory from the features folder of JPalo to the features directory of you eclipse client.


Start eclipse. Change the perspective to one of the palo ones.

Hi Hugo,

I re-read your post and spent some more time hacking and I am happy to report that I have successfully built Palo on MacOSX 10.8.2!

Here are the steps to make it work. I hacked my way around one issue and guessed my way through the other -- hopefully correctly. :-)

1. Download the palo_server_988.zip source code
2. unzip using jar xvf palo_server_988.zip (I have seen other variants. Does anyone know if this is the best set of options to use?)
3. cd to the server_export directory and chmod -R 750 * (http://gvlt.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/com…lo-on-mac-os-x/); I have also seen chmod 755 -- not my area of expertise, but 750 is what I used and it works.
4. Boost 1.52.0 (I did not end up using the homebrew version, although there is no reason you couldn't. I had a heck of a time with linking the thread library and ended up doing ./bootstrap.sh --prefix=/usr/local/boost_1_52_0

The configure script sees the Boost headers but not the thread library, just as you indicated would be the case.

checking boost/thread.hpp usability... yes
checking boost/thread.hpp presence... yes
checking for boost/thread.hpp... yes
checking for the Boost thread library... no
configure: error: Could not find the flags to link with Boost thread

This is where I was stuck and did not know the correct syntax to use. I did not change anything in my .bash_profile except adding the path for the boost libraries:
/usr/local/boost_1_52_0/stage/lib

All of the options and paths are passed on the command line, which makes it pretty ugly.

5. Enter the big ugly configure command below.
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/palo-server --with-boost=/usr/local/boost_1_52_0 BOOST_ROOT="/usr/local/boost_1_52_0" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/boost_1_52_0" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/boost_1_52_0/stage/lib" LIBS="-lboost_thread -lboost_system" BOOST_THREAD_LDFLAGS="-L /usr/local/boost_1_52_0/stage/lib" BOOST_THREAD_LIBS="-lboost_thread -lboost_system" BOOST_CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/boost_1_52_0" DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/boost_1_52_0/stage/lib"

6. type 'make && make install'

7. Copy GNU/Linux client Data directory and copy start/stop scripts
8. Copy/move palo.ini file and set values. The palo.ini file had to be at the same level as the palo executable to make it work.

file location details:
boost is in /usr/local/Boost_1_52_0
the source code directory is in /usr/local/server_export
the compiled Boost thread library is at /usr/local/boost_1_52_0/stage/lib/libboost_thread.dylib


The build issues and how I got around them:
1. There was an ambiguity issue at line 111 of Olap/Engine.cpp

Olap/Engine.cpp: In function ‘void* palo::ecalloc(size_t, size_t, palo::EMemoryContext*, bool)’:
Olap/Engine.cpp:111: error: call of overloaded ‘convertToString(long unsigned int)’ is ambiguous
./Collections/StringUtils.h:185: note: candidates are: static std::string palo::StringUtils::convertToString(double)
./Collections/StringUtils.h:200: note: static std::string palo::StringUtils::convertToString(int64_t)
./Collections/StringUtils.h:215: note: static std::string palo::StringUtils::convertToString(int32_t)
./Collections/StringUtils.h:230: note: static std::string palo::StringUtils::convertToString(uint64_t)
./Collections/StringUtils.h:245: note: static std::string palo::StringUtils::convertToString(uint32_t)
make[1]: *** [Olap/Engine.lo] Error 1
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

My "fix" (please tell me if it not the right way):

// throw ErrorException(ErrorException::ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY, "tried to allocate " + StringUtils::convertToString((uint32_t)n * s) + " Bytes ");
throw ErrorException(ErrorException::ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY, "tried to allocate " + StringUtils::convertToString((uint32_t)uint32_t(n) * uint32_t(s)) + " Bytes ");

The other error appears to be due to a typo:

Worker/Worker.cpp: In member function ‘void palo::Worker::terminateProcess()’:
Worker/Worker.cpp:537: error: ‘stat’ was not declared in this scope
make[1]: *** [Worker/Worker.lo] Error 1
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

line 537: changed 'stat' to 'status'.

// if (!(WIFEXITED(childExitStatus) || WIFSIGNALED(stat))) {
if (!(WIFEXITED(childExitStatus) || WIFSIGNALED(status))) {

I launched the server using the start script and it responds to commands. I need to connect a gui and test it, but the build appears to be successful on my MacBook Air!

===

MBA:palo-server brianfrancis$ ./palo -V
Palo Server Version 3.1.1 (0000)

===

If anyone has trouble building Palo on the Mac, I will try to help you out.

Cheers,
Brian

Thanks for sharing this, Brian. I used boost from Fink and managed to compile Palo. I can run the server and browse the port 7777. However, only one request can be made after which the server shuts down with no apparent reason. The log does not display anything useful (even the trace doesn't show anything one might like to highlight):



At this point the server just dies. Any help appreciated.

Thanks
Madis

Hi Madis,

I have experienced the same issue. I used Fink originally, then homebrew, then a build using configure, etc. Unfortunately, there was no improvement. This might mean Boost is good (any version) and something else is going on. I will keep at it and post here if I make any progress. So far all I see is that it completes a single request and then ends, but does not appear to be crashing. If it is, I cannot find a log entry anywhere indicating that is the case. Hopefully it is something simple we are overlooking.

Hi Brian, I share your views - probably little more playing around with source and configuration is required. I plan to do some research during next few weeks.

Aside from that, do you have a functioning client on Mac? I've tried different versions of Palooca with different versions of OOo and NeoOffice but without satisfactory results.

Cheers,
Madis

Hi Madis,

I installed JPalo into Eclipse. I have not tried to connect to a server yet but everything should work.