Building

Building GnuCash from Source code

Introduction

Gnucash can be built from sources on Linux distributions, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS/X. There are three major steps in building the GnuCash program. These are listed along with the tools which may used for each step:

1. Configuration (cmake - autotools in earlier GnuCash versions);
2. Compilation ( make or ninja);
3. Installation (make or ninja).

Building GnuCash utilizes a set of build tools which is available for all three of the major operating systems. These steps are described in detail for each operating system in the linked pages below, along with the installation of the build tools.

Build Tools

A general description of the tools used to configure and build Gnucash is given in Build tools. The GnuCash build system has gone through some changes in the course of the 2.6 and 3 series. The Autotools set originally used to build GnuCash has been replaced in part with more recent developments which provide the ability to configure for alternative build systems and popular IDEs. CMake has replaced the Autotools autogen and configure scripts for configuring the build. Compilation can either be performed and controlled using the Autotools make script or alternatively using a faster build system Ninja. Either Autotools make or Ninja can also control the installation of GnuCash. Depending on the version of GnuCash you want to build you have the following options:

For the application generally

GnuCash 3 and more recent

These versions can now only be configured using #CMake. Autotools support was removed. Either make or ninja may be used to build ;

GnuCash 2.6 and earlier

Can only be configured with Autotool and built with ther GNU make utility. (V 2.6.13 on allowed experimental use of cmake to configure and ninja to build);

API Source Documentation requires Doxygen and is built from the program sources using make doc.

For program Documentation

The GnuCash Help and Tutorial and Concept Guide are configured with autotools and built with make.

Compiler

GnuCash 3.x requires a C++ compiler that supports ISO-standards C11 and C++11. Gcc version >=4.8 and Clang version >= 3.3 are known to work. For GnuCash 4.x (i.e. current master branch) we expect to require C++14 and may require C++17 compatibility.

Disclaimer

This page deals with building the GnuCash from the source code. It includes building the current stable release from source code (downloaded tarballs as well as well as the developers version of GnuCash from the Git repository. If you are searching for instructions for the stable versionavailable from your distributions software repositories, you should read GnuCash#Installation.

This page doesn't provide specific instructions for optional third-party modules like AqBanking or Perl Finance::Quote but does list the dependencies required and links to the configuration switches used with CMake to include them during compilation.

Building on Linux Distributions

Detailed instructions for building Gnucash on Linux distributions can be found on Building On Linux.

Building on Mac OS X

Mac OS X instructions can be found on MacOSX/Quartz (This is the procedure used for building the binary packages) or gnucash installation from source on Mac OS X.

Building on Microsoft Windows

Compiling GnuCash on Windows is possible, but much more difficult than on linux. For details, see GnuCash on Microsoft Windows.