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Install on MacOS

Last edited by Stéphane Adjemian
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This page documents the installation of the Dynare on Mac OS X. If you have any troubles, please drop a message on the forum.

Install Dynare stable

Dynare for Matlab

  1. Download the appropriate Dynare package for your version of Mac OS X from the website.
  2. Install Dynare by double-clicking on the package and following the installation instructions. If you get a warning saying that the package cannot be opened "because it is from an unidentified developer," open the folder containing the package, right-click on it, select "Open" from the menu that pops up, and select "Open" from the dialog box that pops up.
  3. The default installation folder is /Applications/Dynare/{version}, where {version} is one of 4.2.0, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, etc.

Dynare for Octave

  1. Install Homebrew by following the directions on their site
  2. In the terminal's prompt, type:
~$ brew install dynare
  1. The default installation folder is /usr/local/Cellar/dynare/{version}, where {version} is one of 4.2.0, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, etc.

Install Dynare unstable

Via the snapshot (provides only the Matlab mex files)

Follow the instructions under Install Dynare stable using the latest Dynare snapshot for macOS.

Via Homebrew (provides Matlab and Octave mex files)

Follow the instructions under Install Dynare (Stable): Dynare For Octave, replacing brew install dynare with brew install dynare --HEAD

NB: To build another snapshot version of dynare at a later point, first type brew uninstall dynare then brew install dynare --HEAD.

Setup Matlab/Octave to use Dynare

Dynare stable on Mac OS X 10.6 or higher

Matlab setup

Add /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab/ to your Matlab path. You can do this either using the addpath command to add it just for this session or using the menu option File->Set Path... to add it across Matlab sessions.

Octave setup

  1. Having installed Octave via Homebrew, open Octave by typing octave at the terminal prompt
  2. At the Octave prompt, type:
addpath /usr/local/opt/dynare/lib/dynare/matlab

/usr/local/opt/dynare is a symbolic link to /usr/local/Cellar/dynare/{version}. If you have a non-default setup, you can see what path to add by looking at the "Caveats" section of the output from brew install dynare.

Dynare 4.3.3 - 4.4.2 on Mac OS X 10.6 or higher

Matlab setup

Add /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab/ to your Matlab path. You can do this either using the addpath command to add it just for this session or using the menu option File->Set Path... to add it across Matlab sessions.

Octave setup

  1. Install Octave 3.6.4 via Homebrew (which requires XCode) by following the instructions in the "Simple Installation Instructions" subsection of the "Homebrew" section of this site.
  2. Before executing mod files, you need to execute the following command at Octave prompt:
addpath /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab

Dynare 4.2.2 - 4.3.2 on Mac OS X 10.6 or higher

MATLAB setup

Add /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab/ to your Matlab path. You can do this either using the addpath command to add it just for this session or using the menu option File->Set Path... to add it across Matlab sessions.

Octave Setup for OS X 10.6 and 10.7 (not available under 10.8)

  1. Download and install version 3.4.0 of the Octave Mac OS X binary and add /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/bin to your search path.
  2. If you are going to use the use_dll or k_order_perturbation options, add the following lines to the /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/bin/mkoctfile-3.4.0 file after the set -e statement at the top of the file
CFLAGS="-arch i386 ${CFLAGS}"
FFLAGS="-arch i386 ${FFLAGS}"
CPPFLAGS="-arch i386 ${CPPFLAGS}"
CXXFLAGS="-arch i386 ${CXXFLAGS}"
LDFLAGS="-arch i386 ${LDFLAGS}"
  1. Before executing mod files, you need to execute the following command at Octave prompt:
addpath /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab

Dynare 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 on Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6

Matlab setup

  1. Install XCode 3.2 or later, which can either be installed from the internet or from the installation discs that came with your Mac. This installs the necessary gcc compilers required by build_dynare.m in step 3.
  2. In Matlab, change directory to the root folder of the Dynare installation directory. In the standard installation, you need to do:
>> cd /Applications/Dynare/{version}
  1. At the Matlab prompt, run
>> build_dynare
  1. Once this has finished running, go to File->Set Path... and add the path to the matlab/ subfolder under the installation folder. In the standard installation, this will be /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab. Save the changes before closing the window.

Octave Setup

  1. Download and install version 3.2.3 of the Octave Mac OS X binary and add /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/bin to your search path.
  2. If you are going to use the use_dll or k_order_perturbation options, add the following lines to the /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/bin/mkoctfile-3.2.3 file after the set -e statement at the top of the file
CFLAGS="-arch i386 ${CFLAGS}"
FFLAGS="-arch i386 ${FFLAGS}"
CPPFLAGS="-arch i386 ${CPPFLAGS}"
CXXFLAGS="-arch i386 ${CXXFLAGS}"
LDFLAGS="-arch i386 ${LDFLAGS}"
  1. Before excuting mod files, you need to execute the following command at Octave prompt:
addpath /Applications/Dynare/{version}/matlab

Documentation

Documentation can be found in the doc/ folder under the installation directory (the default is Applications/Dynare/{version}/doc). The User Guide (located by default in /Applications/Dynare/{version}/doc/userguide/UserGuide.pdf) is a particularly helpful starting place.