[Rd] R search engine broken (PR#6653)

[Marc Schwartz]

On Mon, 2004-03-08 at 07:24, Prof Brian D Ripley wrote:
> This has been discussed many times on R-help, which would have been a more
> appropriate forum,
> 
> The issue appears to be not R, not JavaScript but Java.  The latest Sun
> JVM, 1.4.2_03, does not work for us, but 1.4.2_01 does (if you can get hold
> of it) and for me under Linux 1.4.2_02 does not.  You can use earlier
> versions of Java, but not as plugins for browsers compiled under gcc 3.x.


To add to Prof. Ripley's comments, I have copied the requisite j2re
files to my web server so that they can be made available to the
community.

I located version 1.4.2_01 on a mirror this morning, though it was
rather slow in downloading.

The two files are:

http://www.MedAnalytics.com/j2re-1_4_2_01-linux-i586.bin
http://www.MedAnalytics.com/j2re-1_4_2_01-linux-i586-rpm.bin

I also put an md5sum file here:

http://www.MedAnalytics.com/MD5SUM

You only need ONE of the above, depending upon whether you have a system
that supports RPM packages or otherwise have a personal preference.

Installation help is available here from Sun:

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/linux_install.jsp

The RPM will install java and the browser plugins here:

/usr/java/j2re1.4.2_01/plugin/i386


Once you have one of the above installed, you then need to create a
symlink to the browser plugin. I have found that doing this in my local
home directory is easier than doing it in the mozilla version specific
directory. As a result, in ~/.mozilla/plugins, use the following
command:

ln -s path_to_java/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Replace 'path_to_java' with the actual installation path and if you are
not using a gcc3.x system, change the 'ns610-gcc32' to 'ns610'.

Doing it this way, the plugin will work for both Mozilla and Firefox.

Once you have completed the install, go here to test the browser plugin:

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.jsp

You can then test the R help.start() search engine. If this has been
done properly, you should see "Applet SearchEngine started" in the lower
left hand corner of the browser status bar, when you select the Search
Engine link on the initial page.

I don't know if it may be reasonable or appropriate to copy these to
CRAN. If not, I can leave them on my site until further notice. I tested
the download speed and was getting >300 kbps, so as long as the site
does not get "slashdotted" it should be OK...  :-)

HTH,

Marc Schwartz