Build fails on ARM64 (Raspberry Pi 5) — fixes for GCC 14 / ICU 76 / C++17

[jrnormanuk]

FreeLing 4.2 — Build fixes for ARM64 (Raspberry Pi 5)

Summary

FreeLing 4.2 fails to build from source on ARM64 (tested on Raspberry Pi 5, 8GB,
running Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm 64-bit, GCC 14.2, ICU 76.1). The following fixes
are required. All can be applied before running cmake.

---

Environment

• Hardware: Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB RAM)
• OS: Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm 64-bit (Debian-based, aarch64)
• Compiler: GCC 14.2.0
• CMake: 3.31.6
• Boost: 1.83.0
• ICU: 76.1
• SWIG: 4.3.0 (for Python bindings)

---

Fix 1 — CMakeLists.txt: upgrade C++ standard from 11 to 17

ICU 76.x requires C++17. The hardcoded set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11) causes
compilation to fail with errors like 'is_convertible_v' is not a member of 'std'.

File: CMakeLists.txt, line ~5

# Before
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)

# After
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)

---

Fix 2 — src/libdynet/dynet/mem.cc: remove x86-specific memory functions

mm_malloc.h is x86-only and does not exist on ARM64. Replace with standard
equivalents.

File: src/libdynet/dynet/mem.cc

// Before
#include <mm_malloc.h>
// ...
void* ptr = _mm_malloc(n, align);
// ...
_mm_free(mem);

// After
#ifdef __x86_64__
#include <mm_malloc.h>
#endif
// ...
void* ptr = aligned_alloc(align, n);
// ...
free(mem);

---

Fix 3 — src/libtreeler/treeler/base/scores.h: remove const from mutable member

GCC 14 correctly rejects assignment to a const member via set_score().

File: src/libtreeler/treeler/base/scores.h, line ~85

// Before
const double _s;

// After
double _s;

---

Fix 4 — Missing #include <cmath> in multiple files

Several source files use log, fabs, sqrt etc. without including <cmath>,
which GCC 14 no longer tolerates. Add #include <cmath> to the top of each:

• src/include/freeling/morfo/smoothingLD.h
• src/libfreeling/csr_kb.cc
• src/libfreeling/numbers/numbers_cs.cc
• src/libfreeling/output/output_freeling.cc
• src/libfreeling/semdb.cc
• src/libfreeling/maco.cc
• src/libfreeling/hmm_tagger.cc
• src/libfreeling/analyzer_config.cc
• src/libfreeling/accents/accents_gl.cc
• src/libfreeling/analyzer.cc
• src/libfreeling/coref/relaxcor/relaxcor_fex_dep.cc
• src/libfreeling/coref/relaxcor/relaxcor_fex_constit.cc
• src/libfreeling/coref/adaboost/coref_fex.cc
• src/libfreeling/dependency_parsing/dep_lstm.cc
• src/libfreeling/tagset.cc
• src/libfreeling/dates/dates_ru.cc
• src/libfreeling/summarizer/summarizer.cc
• src/libfreeling/omlet/libsvm.cc
• src/libfreeling/omlet/viterbi.cc
• src/libfreeling/ner_module.cc

Quick fix using Python:

python3 -c "
import os
files = [
    'src/include/freeling/morfo/smoothingLD.h',
    'src/libfreeling/csr_kb.cc',
    # ... (add all files above)
]
for f in files:
    content = open(f).read()
    if '#include <cmath>' not in content:
        open(f, 'w').write('#include <cmath>\n' + content)
        print('Fixed:', f)
"

---

Fix 5 — src/libfreeling/analyzer.cc: narrowing conversion of EOF

EOF is -1 (signed int) being assigned to an unsigned type, which GCC 14
treats as an error in C++17 mode.

File: src/libfreeling/analyzer.cc, line ~402

// Before
case EOF:

// After
case (unsigned int)EOF:

---

Fix 6 — Python bindings (APIs/python3/CMakeLists.txt): enforce C++17

The SWIG-generated Python binding code needs C++17 explicitly, as it doesn't
inherit the top-level standard setting.

File: APIs/python3/CMakeLists.txt — add at end:

set_property(TARGET _pyfreeling PROPERTY CXX_STANDARD 17)

---

Build commands (after applying fixes)

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17 -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-std=c++17" -DPYTHON3_API=ON
make -j4
sudo make install

---

Language data

The Catalan language data is not included in FreeLing-src-4.2.tar.gz.
Download and extract FreeLing-langs-src-4.2.tar.gz into the same directory
before running make install:

wget https://github.com/TALP-UPC/FreeLing/releases/download/4.2/FreeLing-langs-src-4.2.tar.gz
tar -xzf FreeLing-langs-src-4.2.tar.gz -C FreeLing-4.2/
# Note: extracts into a nested FreeLing-4.2/FreeLing-4.2/data/ — copy up one level:
cp -r FreeLing-4.2/FreeLing-4.2/data/* FreeLing-4.2/data/

---

Working Catalan config

The default ca.cfg requires an HMM tagger model that is not distributed.
Use the RELAX tagger instead. Create /usr/local/share/freeling/config/ca_working.cfg:

Lang=ca
Locale=ca_ES.UTF-8
TokenizerFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/tokenizer.dat
SplitterFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/splitter.dat
AffixAnalysis=yes
MultiwordsDetection=yes
NumbersDetection=yes
PunctuationDetection=yes
DatesDetection=yes
QuantitiesDetection=yes
DictionarySearch=yes
DictionaryFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/dicc.src
ProbabilityAssignment=yes
ProbabilityFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/probabilitats.dat
ProbabilityThreshold=0.001
NERecognition=no
LocutionsFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/locucions.dat
QuantitiesFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/quantities.dat
AffixFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/afixos.dat
PunctuationFile=$FREELINGSHARE/common/punct.dat
Tagger=relax
TaggerRelaxFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/constr_gram-B.dat
TaggerRelaxMaxIter=500
TaggerRelaxScaleFactor=670.0
TaggerRelaxEpsilon=0.001
TaggerForceSelect=tagger
DependencyParser=txala
DepTxalaFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/dep_txala/dependences.dat
GrammarFile=$FREELINGSHARE/ca/chunker/grammar-chunk.dat

Also build the Catalan dictionary manually (not done by make install on ARM64):

~/FreeLing-4.2/build/src/utilities/build-dict \
  ~/FreeLing-4.2/data/ca/dictionary/header \
  ~/FreeLing-4.2/data/ca/dictionary/entries \
  > /tmp/ca_dicc.src
sudo mv /tmp/ca_dicc.src /usr/local/share/freeling/ca/dicc.src

---

Running as a service

Create /etc/systemd/system/freeling.service:

[Unit]
Description=Freeling NLP Server
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/analyzer -f /usr/local/share/freeling/config/ca_working.cfg --server --port 50005
Restart=always
User=YOUR_USERNAME
StandardOutput=append:/var/log/freeling.log
StandardError=append:/var/log/freeling.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable freeling
sudo systemctl start freeling

[jrnormanuk]

Note on scope: The fixes documented in this issue apply specifically to building FreeLing 4.2 from the release tarball (FreeLing-src-4.2.tar.gz) on ARM64.

We attempted to submit these as a PR against the current master branch, but found that src/libfreeling/analyzer.cc and several other files have been substantially refactored since the 4.2 release, making a clean patch against master impractical without access to a test environment running the current codebase.

The fixes remain valid and complete for anyone building from the 4.2 release. If the maintainers wish to incorporate them into a future release, the key changes needed are:

1. CMakeLists.txt: C++ standard 11 → 17 (already merged to master in commit 0bae6b7)
2. src/libdynet/dynet/mem.cc: remove x86-specific mm_malloc
3. src/libtreeler/treeler/base/scores.h: remove const from _s member
4. Multiple src/libfreeling/ files: add #include <cmath>
5. APIs/python3/CMakeLists.txt: enforce C++17 for SWIG target

Tested successfully on: Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB), Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm 64-bit, GCC 14.2.0, ICU 76.1, Boost 1.83.0, CMake 3.31.6.