Using apt-get to get dependencies from the package maintainers

The universal way to get dependencies for a package is below. The disadvantage is that the distribution list of dependencies can be outdated.

apt-get build-dep swi-prolog

After building you may wish to run ?- check_installation. in swipl to check that all components have been built properly.

Installing the dependencies manually

Use the following commands to obtain all dependencies for a full build from source. Note that there are no known version dependencies on any of these packages. If your (debian-based) distribution is lacking any of these package use apt search <name> to find an alternative, where <name> is e.g., jdk (i.e., remove version and details). Some remarks:

• ninja-build may be dropped, building using make. Using make is fine for a one-time build, but ninja is advised for developers or people that regularly update using git.
• It is possible to use iodbc instead of unixodbc for ODBC connectivity.
• The SWI-Prolog Java interface (JPL) works with many Java development kits. Junit4 is needed as of version 8.1.29. Older versions require junit (Junit 3).
• The package libarchive-dev is needed for library(archive), which is needed by pack_install/1.
• The package libossp-uuid-dev is needed for library(uuid). Without UUID support falls back to a slower and less versatile pure Prolog implementation.
• The package libdb-dev is needed for library(bdb), the BerkeleyDB embedded database interface.
• The package libreadline-dev and libedit-dev both provide command line editing for interactive usage. None is strictly needed and one of them suffices. libedit-dev is the preferred command line editor.
• libgoogle-perftools-dev provides tcmalloc, which can reduce memory usage a lot on some heavily multithreaded applications.
• libpcre2-dev is required for library(pcre). SWI-Prolog versions before 8.5.9 require libpcre3-dev (which is older than libpcre2-dev ...)
• cmake must be at least version 3.5 See CMAKE.md

sudo apt-get install \
        build-essential cmake ninja-build pkg-config \
        ncurses-dev libreadline-dev libedit-dev \
        libgoogle-perftools-dev \
        libgmp-dev \
        libssl-dev \
        unixodbc-dev \
        zlib1g-dev libarchive-dev \
        libossp-uuid-dev \
        libxext-dev libice-dev libjpeg-dev libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxft-dev \
        libxpm-dev libxt-dev \
        libdb-dev \
        libpcre2-dev \
        libyaml-dev \
        python3 libpython3-dev \
        default-jdk junit4

Raspbian is fully supported and can be used to build SWI-Prolog including all packages without issues. If you want to reduce resources, the following packages are optional:

default-jdk junit

Without you do not have Java connectivity (JPL)

libxext-dev libice-dev libjpeg-dev libxinerama-dev libxft-dev libxpm-dev libxt-dev

Without these xpce will not be built and the graphical IDE tools are not available.

unixodbc-dev

Without, you have no ODBC database connectivity (e.g., MySQL)

libssl-dev

Without, you have no SSL (and HTTPS) support.

libgmp-dev

Without, support for big integers, rational numbers and good random numbers falls back to the bundled modified LibBF implementation. This is smaller but slower. If you have other applications using libgmp this is the best choice for performance and space. If SWI-Prolog is the only application using libgmp dropping the dependency could be a good choice.

libpcre2-dev

Without, you have no regular expression support (library(pcre)).

libyaml-dev

Without you have no YAML support (library(yaml)).

python3 libpython3-dev

Without you have no library(janus), providing access to an embedded Python interpreter, neither teh MQI package to access SWI-Prolog using network communication from Python.

Prerequisites to build swipl-win

The swipl-win executable provides a Qt based console for SWI-Prolog by Carlo Capelli. This console is used to provide the MacOS app, but can also be used on Linux. To include it, install the Qt development environment:

apt-get install qt6-base-dev

Unfortunately the packaging of Qt changes frequently. Try to find base Qt packages, preferably from Qt6 (Qt5 still works) until cmake stops complaining about missing Qt dependencies. Note that you do not have to clean the build after adding a Qt package. Below are a few alternatives that used to work on older Ubuntu versions.

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools

sudo apt install qt5-default

Prerequisites to build the documentation

The HTML documentation is built as part of the default build procedure and only depends on Prolog itself and some of its packages. The dependencies below are needed to build the PDF documentation. Configuring the build to include the PDF docs requires

cmake -DBUILD_PDF_DOCUMENTATION=ON ...

sudo apt-get install \
        texlive-latex-extra \
        texlive-font-utils \
        texlive-fonts-extra \
        texlive-fonts-extra-doc \
        texlive-fonts-recommended \
        texlive-fonts-recommended-doc

Now that after you have installed dependencies, return to Build SWI-Prolog from source to complete installation.