How to Fix Emacs Native Compilation Errors — libgccjit Issues

In this tutorial, you'll learn about How to Fix Emacs Native Compilation Errors. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices.

The Problem

Emacs native compilation fails:

libgccjit.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Quick Fix

Step 1: Check if Emacs supports native compilation

M-x native-comp-available-p

If nil, build Emacs with --with-native-compilation.

Step 2: Install libgccjit

sudo apt install libgccjit-14-dev

Step 3: Build Emacs with native compilation

git clone https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs.git
cd emacs
./autogen.sh
./configure --with-native-compilation --with-json
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Verify:

emacs --version
# Should show: --with-native-compilation

Step 4: Configure native compilation

(setq native-comp-async-jobs-number 4)
(setq native-comp-eln-load-path '("~/.emacs.d/eln-cache/"))

Step 5: Clear native compilation cache

rm -rf ~/.emacs.d/eln-cache/

Step 6: Fix libgccjit library path

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Prevention

• Use a package manager that provides Emacs with native compilation.
• Keep libgccjit updated.
• Monitor ~/.emacs.d/eln-cache/ for compilation errors.

Common Mistakes with native compile

1. Overlapping type class instances that cause GHC to reject the program with ambiguous dispatch errors
2. Non-exhaustive pattern matches that compile with warnings then crash at runtime
3. Misunderstanding that String is [Char] with poor performance for large text operations

These mistakes appear frequently in real-world EMACS code. DodaTech's contributors have identified these patterns through analysis of open-source projects and production systems.

Practice Exercise

Write a pure function that safely divides two integers using Maybe, then test it with edge cases like division by zero and negative numbers.

This exercise reinforces the concepts covered in this guide. Try implementing it before checking online solutions.

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