[Rd] Building packages on Windows fails
Duncan Murdoch
murdoch at stats.uwo.ca
Fri Oct 7 17:58:02 CEST 2005
Peter Kleiweg wrote:
> Prof Brian Ripley schreef op de 7e dag van de wijnmaand van het jaar 2005:
>
>
>>On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Peter Kleiweg wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Duncan Murdoch schreef op de 6e dag van de wijnmaand van het jaar 2005:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Peter Kleiweg wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>What has changed in R for Windows from version 1.7.1 to
>>>>>2.2.0 that won't allow me to build binary packages?
>>>>
>>>>Many things have changed; I don't know which is causing
>>>>the failure you see. One change is that instructions are
>>>>now collected in the Installation and Administration
>>>>manual. Try following the setup instructions there and see
>>>>if it still fails.
>>>
>>>I can't find anything on building packages for Windows in
>>>that manual.
>>
>>Your problems was installing, so the section on `Installing
>>Packages' should help you.
>
>
> Installing worked fine. Building a binary distribution (with
> compiled help files) is what didn't work.
>
> This worked fine:
>
> Rcmd build iL04
>
> But that just gave a gzip'ed tarfile, not a zip-file, and
> without the compiled helpfiles.
>
> This didn't work:
>
> Rcmd build --force --binary iL04
>
>
>
>>>I did find a solution to the problem. On a Linux install,
>>>each package has a file CONTENTS. These are missing from the
>>>Windows install. I copied those files from my Linux install
>>>to my Windows install, and then I could build my own
>>>package. So I guess, these CONTENTS files should be included
>>>in the Windows install.
>>
>>And indeed they are, as the presence of 500+ packages on CRAN
>>for Windows will show you.
>
>
> Well, I just ran the install program for Windows, with compiled
> html help, but without the ordinary html help files. In that
> case, no CONTENTS files get installed.
>
>
>>The recommended way to build a binary package on Windows is
>>
>>R CMD INSTALL --build
>
>
> Yes, that works. Even without the CONTENTS files. And this is
> recommended in the manual "Creating R packages", another manual
> than Duncan Murdoch was referring to.
>
> I was using a method that was recommended in earlier versions.
> Perhaps that method should just be disabled, with a
> message about the current method, instead of having it fail for
> obscure reasons.
I agree there should be only one method, and it should work. The
problem is:
- Users with limited permissions can't run INSTALL, because it needs
write access to R_HOME/library.
- Because Windows doesn't have soft links, the only way we have to get
cross references in the help files to work is to install to R_HOME/library.
I'd prefer to fix "Rcmd build --binary" so that it got the help links
right and then have "Rcmd INSTALL --build" use it first, then install
the .zip file, but I haven't taken the time to do this. I don't like
having two parallel tracks of very similar code (because of problems
like yours, where the one I don't personnally use falls out of date and
stops working).
Duncan Murdoch
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