[Rd] R as OS X Framework

[Prof Brian Ripley]

R on Unix can be run from where it is built, and I frequently move where 
it is built/change symbolic links.  You definitely do not want where it is 
going to be installed, as make check is run where it is built (not that 
that matters when the R(.sh) scripts sets R_HOME).

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Simon Urbanek wrote:

> On Nov 29, 2003, at 9:33 PM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, Simon Urbanek wrote:
> >
> >> BTW: This is not Mac specific - I was fighting this on Windows (and
> >> unix for that matter) as well - it is possible to run an .exe linked 
> >> to
> >> R.dll from anywhere, if R.dll is in the PATH. But then, one has to
> >> determine R_HOME somehow (yes, there is the registry, but that's not
> >> really safe if more R versions are installed).
> >
> > How do you do that?  For R's own executables on Windows R_HOME is
> > determined from where they are loaded from.  You cannot AFAIK determine
> > from within an executable where the R.dll was linked from.  That's why 
> > the
> > rproxy.dll uses the registry.  I believe you have even less 
> > information on
> > Windows.
> 
> On Mac OS X there is a very nice CoreFoundation function: 
> CFBundleGetBundleWithIdentifier. Each bundle can have an unique 
> identifier and the above function will return the bundle reference if 
> the bundle was loaded by the current application - and a framework is a 
> bundle. So for Mac OS X this piece of code will determine R_HOME of the 
> linked R.framework:
> 
> CFBundleRef bundle = 
> CFBundleGetBundleWithIdentifier(CFSTR("org.r-project.r-framework") );
> CFURLRef rdir=CFBundleCopyBundleURL(bundle);
> CFStringRef rhome=CFURLCopyFileSystemPath(rdir,kCFURLPOSIXPathStyle);
> 
> I doubt there is any standard way on unix platforms in general. I have 
> a vague feeling that I saw some relevant API on Windows - at least form 
> the DLL itself, but I'm stuck with my PowerBook for three more week 
> until I get home, so I can't check that easily.
> 
> I would suggest a fallback for cases where the location cannot be 
> determined: we could use a tiny source file like location.c.in (could 
> be config.h.in itself for that matter) which gets processed by 
> configure and contains the install path. Then any program linked to R 
> shlib could call a function like char* R_installPath(); Although that 
> is not optimal, it is in general unlikely that the user would move R 
> after doing make install (unless it's a network installation of course 
> - then we're in trouble) and it is even safer that the registry on 
> Windows. It would be an useful fallback for platforms where we simply 
> don't know.
> 
> Simon
> 
> PS: My script mentioned in the original post doesn't create proper 
> Info,plist if ran by /bin/sh - you can get the correct Info.plist for R 
> 1.8.1 from http://stats.math.uni-augsburg.de/misc/Info.plist and copy 
> it to .../R.framework/Resources/
> 
> ---
> Simon Urbanek
> Department of computer oriented statistics and data analysis
> Universitätsstr. 14
> 86135 Augsburg
> Germany
> 
> Tel: +49-821-598-2236
> Fax: +49-821-598-2280
> 
> Simon.Urbanek at Math.Uni-Augsburg.de
> http://simon.urbanek.info
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at 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 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595