golibavlibavcodec

fatal error: 'libavcodec/avcodec.h' file not found caused by zergon321/reisen

When running Go code on Mac M2 (important, because installation of related libs work differently on Linux) that imports "github.com/zergon321/reisen" I got this:

# github.com/zergon321/reisen
/Users/ido/go/pkg/mod/github.com/zergon321/reisen@v0.1.4/audio.go:4:11: fatal error: 'libavcodec/avcodec.h' file not found
 #include <libavcodec/avcodec.h>
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.

I have ffmpeg (includes the libavcodec/avcodec.h header) installed using brew

brew install ffmpeg

but it doesn't get picked up by itself.

Solution

  • This worked to fix it:

    1. If you indeed installed ffmpeg with brew, the header file should be there -> /opt/homebrew/Cellar/ffmpeg/5.1.2/include/libavcodec/avcodec.h (lib version could be different). If it is not there for some reason, you can try to locate the header file using find / -name "avcodec.h"
    2. Once you have established avcodec.h's location, note the full path to the /include directory and run your go code passing the following flag:
    CGO_CPPFLAGS="-I<path/to/include/directory>" go run <your file name or a period>

    The full command for me looked like this:

    CGO_CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ffmpeg/5.1.2/include" go run .