Using Chapel on Mac OS X

There are two main approaches for using Chapel on Mac OS X:

  1. Install via Homebrew. For Homebrew users, this is the quickest way to get up and running, but it results in a copy of Chapel that only supports shared-memory (single-locale) executions.

  2. Install and build Chapel from source, as with any other UN*X system. This is slightly more involved, but supports Chapel’s full feature set. Refer to the Chapel Quickstart Instructions for more information.

Homebrew

A minimal installation of Chapel can be obtained through Homebrew with the following commands:

brew update
brew install chapel

These commands install the latest release of Chapel. When using a Homebrew installation of Chapel, the CHPL_HOME directory is here:

/usr/local/Cellar/chapel/<chapel-version>/libexec/

Compile and run a test program:

chpl /usr/local/Cellar/chapel/<chapel-version>/libexec/hello.chpl
./hello

If you’re new to Chapel, refer to the What’s Next? section of Chapel Quickstart Instructions for next steps.

Note

The Homebrew installation provides a minimal installation of Chapel for users to explore and test the language. Of the omitted features, multilocale support is most notable. Users interested in utilizing Chapel’s complete set of features should build Chapel from source (option 2 above).

Note

It is also possible for developers to use Homebrew to build and install a development version based on the main branch on GitHub:

brew install chapel --HEAD