[Rd] pac2bin

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Paul Gilbert wrote:

>
> I sometimes wonder how difficult it would be to set up an email system, like the
> netlib@netlib.bell-labs.com facility for f2c, but for producing binary versions of
> packages. Has anyone every thought about this? I guess the main use would be for
> Windows, about which I know almost nothing, so I won't volunteer myself.

If it all worked without a hitch, yes.  Many do not: for example several
need to be configured manually (without instructions, either) as their
configure scripts do not work under Windows (or use Unix-specific paths).
The real problems are packages that fail make pkgcheck-foo, e.g.
because they have par(ask=T) and Windows is using smaller buffers.
And then there are those which use data directories in unintended ways so
they cannot be zipped ....

Also, some of building has to be done under Windows, so one would need a
Windows server running.

There are ideas to ease this.  Peter D and I have talking about
cross-compiling and using Wine or Win4lin.  A couple of people are
exploring volunteering to help with or automate Windows builds.
When shortly I actually have my own suitable box (a dual PIII Linux box)
on the Internet, I will explore too.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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