[Rd] RFC: Add 'postinstall' hook to R CMD INSTALL ?

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

Brian,

On 6 June 2008 at 07:33, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
| 
| On 6 June 2008 at 13:13, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
| | > On 6 June 2008 at 11:34, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
| | > | Isn't this what Type: Frontend is for?  That gives you complete control
| | > | and would seem appropriate for both of your examples.
| | >
| | > Interesting.  But the R Extensions manual says
| | >
| | >   1.10.1 Frontend
| | >   ---------------
| | >
| | >   This is a rather general mechanism, designed for adding new front-ends
| | >   such as the *gnomeGUI* package.  If a `configure' file is found in the
| | >   top-level directory of the package it is executed, and then if a
| | >   `Makefile' is found (often generated by `configure'), `make' is called.
| | >   If `R CMD INSTALL --clean' is used `make clean' is called.  No other
| | >   action is taken.
| | >
| | > I am talking about the need for 'other action' such as 'make install', say.
| | >
| | > Are you suggesting I shoehorn what I want done into the main 'make' target ?
| | 
| | Yes.  I don't see it as 'shoehorn' -- it is the install step.
| 
| I have to think about this. I was envisioning a degree of freedom between
| 'make' and 'make install'. I may need some optionality here.
| 
| Anyway -- thanks for the suggestions. It is indeed very close to what I had
| asked for.

Thanks again for the gnomeGui suggestion. I looked at it and it comes close
but offer no cigar yet.  So looking at the code in $R_HOME/bin/INSTALL:

  if test "$Type" = "Frontend" ; then
    message "Installing *Frontend* package '${pkg_name}' ..."
    if ${preclean}; then
      ${MAKE} clean
    fi
    if ${use_configure} && test -x ./configure ; then
      eval ${configure_vars} ./configure ${configure_args}
      if test ${?} -ne 0; then
	error "configuration failed for package '${pkg_name}'"
	do_exit_on_error
      fi
    fi
    if test -f ./Makefile ; then
	${MAKE}
      if test ${?} -ne 0; then
	error "make failed for package '${pkg_name}'"
	do_exit_on_error
      fi
      if ${clean}; then
	${MAKE} clean
      fi
      return
    fi
    return
  fi

it is clear that the 'make install' step Jeff and I have asked about is not
there.  

Seeing how behaviour in the 'Frontend' case can be conditioned on flags like
--preclean, would there be objections to a patch implementing a new option,
say, --frontendinstall (or something similar that is shorter and more
expressive) that would, if set, call '${MAKE} install' before the 'make
clean' step ?

Better still, and in order to make things more autoMAGIC so that we can use
features like update.packages(), could the 'make install' case be conditional
on a) the 'Type = Frontend' choice in DESCRIPTION _and_ b) a top-level script
frontend-install in the package?  So instead of an user the user had to
choose, could we just run this for her a la

      if test -f ./frontend-install; then
	./frontend-install
	## alternatively, run ${MAKE} install
      if test ${?} -ne 0; then
	error "make install failed for package '${pkg_name}'"
	do_exit_on_error
      fi

Thirdly, I don't really see why we can't just run 'make install'
unconditionally.  That may need a minor patch to gnomeGUI to move the
(somewhat non-standard) 'install' target out of the 'make all' dependencies.
	 
I'd be happy to work on a complete patch that also updates the discussion in
the R Extensions manual, R Admin manual and the INSTALL help text, plus
whereever else INSTALL is documented.

Regards, Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.