[Rd] having trouble building r-devel

[Mark.Bravington at csiro.au]

Dear R-devel

On my Windows 2000 machine, I can build R-patched but not R-devel (since at least 1/9/2004). An error message pops up during the execution of some R code during "make", as below. In terms of "make" etc., I am totally clueless (not being a user of either Linux or C) and just mechanically follow the instructions in the R documentation; hence I've got no idea what to do when things snarf.

More information below. Any advice appreciated-- I'm trying to test a patch for R2.0.0.

Mark

Background factoids:

1. The tools.zip file that I use is dated 9/5/2003.

2. I did expunge the R-devel directory before unzipping the .tar.gz and building.

3. I made my usual 2 changes to default MkRules (WINHELP=NO and TCL_HOME=C:/R/Tcl).

4. I don't have the Latex "bin" directory in the search path, contrary to src/gnuwin32/INSTALL-- but this hasn't been a problem in the past. With R-patched (and all the previous R versions I've built), I do get some errors/warnings about pdflatex not found but the build continues and the .exe files get created just fine.

Here's what happens leading up to the error:

C:\R\R-devel\src\gnuwin32> make

<< no worrying messages>>

  making bootstrap versions of packages ...
  -- base
  -- tools
  making DLL ...

<< no worrying messages >>

  ... DLL made
  installing DLL
  ... done
cp ../../doc/html/R.css ../../library/R.css

writing help indices for package: base tools utils grDevices graphics stats datasets methods grid sp
lines stats4 tcltk

---------- Making package base ------------
  adding build stamp to DESCRIPTION
Error in get(x, envir, mode, inherits) : variable ".install_package_description" was not found
Execution halted
make[4]: *** [frontmatter] Error 1
make[3]: *** [all] Error 2
make[2]: *** [pkg-base] Error 2
make[1]: *** [rpackage] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2



*******************************

Mark Bravington
CSIRO (CMIS)
PO Box 1538
Castray Esplanade
Hobart
TAS 7001

phone (61) 3 6232 5118
fax (61) 3 6232 5012
Mark.Bravington at csiro.au