installed libtool but libtoolize not found

Question

im trying to build libxml2 from source on my mac.

so i have autoconf libtool and automake installed using mac ports

autoconf and automake seem to be working

Answer 1

You typically need to use glibtool and glibtoolize, since libtool already exists on OS X as a binary tool for creating Mach-O dynamic libraries. So, that's how MacPorts installs it, using a program name transform, though the port itself is still named 'libtool'.

Some autogen.sh scripts (or their equivalent) will honor the LIBTOOL / LIBTOOLIZE environment variables. I have a line in my own autogen.sh scripts:

case `uname` in Darwin*) glibtoolize --copy ;;
  *) libtoolize --copy ;; esac

You may or may not want the --copy flag.

---

Note: If you've installed the autotools using MacPorts, a correctly written configure.ac with Makefile.am files should only require autoreconf -fvi. It should call glibtoolize, etc., as expected. Otherwise, some packages will distribute an autogen.sh or similar script.

Answer 2

An alternative to Brew is to use macports. For example:

$ port info libtool
libtool @2.4.6_5 (devel, sysutils)
Variants:             universal

Description:          GNU libtool is a generic library support script. Libtool hides the complexity of using shared libraries behind a consistent, portable interface.
Homepage:             https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool

Build Dependencies:   xattr
Platforms:            darwin, freebsd
License:              libtool
Maintainers:          Email: larryv@macports.org, GitHub: larryv

Then like Brew, you do:

$ sudo port install libtool
Password:
--->  Fetching archive for libtool
--->  Attempting to fetch libtool-2.4.6_5.darwin_15.x86_64.tbz2 from https://packages.macports.org/libtool
--->  Attempting to fetch libtool-2.4.6_5.darwin_15.x86_64.tbz2.rmd160 from https://packages.macports.org/libtool
--->  Installing libtool @2.4.6_5
--->  Activating libtool @2.4.6_5
--->  Cleaning libtool
--->  Updating database of binaries
--->  Updating database of C++ stdlib usage
--->  Scanning binaries for linking errors
--->  No broken files found.                             
--->  No broken ports found.

Then you can check where it lives ... btw, you can soft-link glibtoolize to libtoolize. For my needs either was okay

$ which glibtoolize
/opt/local/bin/glibtoolize

Answer 3

I hope my answer is not too naive. I am a noob to OSX.

brew install libtool solved a similar issue for me.

Answer 4

To bring together a few threads libtoolize is installed as glibtoolize when you install libtool using brew. This can be achieved as follows; install it and then create a softlink for libtoolize:

brew install libtool
ln -s /usr/local/bin/glibtoolize /usr/local/bin/libtoolize