[Rd] Rcmd check fails on Windows Samba network path in R 2.9.1

[Kevin R. Coombes]

Hi,

Thanks; that confirms that the problem originates where I thought it 
did, and provides a fix from within R.

However, the original problem was that running "Rcmd check" from a 
Windows/DOS command prompt on a package on a mounted Samba network drive 
fails.  The failure occurs because of the file.access call in 
"install.R", which appears to get incorrect information from the 
operating system.  Is it possible to get install.R changed so it works 
in this situation?

(Under the philosophy that "it is easier to beg forgiveness than to ask 
permission", perhaps install R should just try to create/write what it 
wants and only fail iby checking the result rather than 'asking 
permission"....)

Best,
    Kevin

Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
> See r-devel thread '[Rd] file.access() on network (mounted) drive on
> Windows Vista' on Nov 26, 2008:
>
>   http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/e5/devel/08/11/0806.html
>
> where it was concluded that file.access() is "not 100%", e.g.
> file.access() and file.info() can give different answers.
>
> I added fileAccess(..., safe=TRUE) to R.utils, which imitates
> file.access() but relies also on file.info() and file.exists() to
> infer the rights.  It is still not 100% but (hopefully) closer than
> file.access().
>
> /H
>
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Kevin R.
> Coombes<krcoombes at mdacc.tmc.edu> wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> The problem almost certainly has something to do with Samba.  We also have a
>> NetApp file system, and copying the package source to that drive and running
>> Rcmd check from Windows works just fine.
>>
>> When running the commands from an interactive R session, file_test returns
>> TRUE and file.access to test write permission indicates a failure, even
>> though that information is incorrect.Here is a session transcript:
>>
>> -----------------------------------------
>>     
>>> getwd()
>>>       
>> [1] "n:/krc/Umpire/R-Package"
>>     
>>> lib <- "Umpire.Rcheck"
>>> file_test("-d", lib)
>>>       
>> [1] TRUE
>>     
>>> file.access(lib, 2)
>>>       
>> Umpire.Rcheck
>>          -1
>>     
>>> dir.create(paste(lib, "testdir", sep='/'))
>>> dir(lib)
>>>       
>> [1] "00check.log"   "00install.out" "testdir"     > sessionInfo()
>> R version 2.9.1 (2009-06-26)
>> i386-pc-mingw32
>>
>> locale:
>> LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
>> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
>> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>>
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>> ----------------------------------------
>> Again, this all worked (and still works) correctly in 2.8.1.
>>
>>   Kevin
>>
>> Tony Plate wrote:
>>     
>>> This error message looks like it comes from src/library/tools/R/install.R,
>>> which contains the following test:
>>>
>>>   if (!.file_test("-d", lib) || file.access(lib, 2L))
>>>       stop("ERROR: no permission to install to directory ",
>>>            sQuote(lib), call. = FALSE)
>>>
>>> The function .file_test() is defined earlier in the same file (it looks at
>>> file.info(lib)$isdir) and appears to be intended to be the same as
>>> utils:::file_test().
>>>
>>> You could start trying to figure out what the problem is by trying these
>>> calls on the directory in question from an interactive R session.
>>> (They seem to work as intended on my Windows system with a NetApp file
>>> system mounted on a letter drive.)
>>>
>>> -- Tony Plate
>>>
>>> Kevin R. Coombes wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I have just updated R from version 2.8.1 to version 2.9.1.  I am running
>>>> Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3.
>>>>
>>>> With the update, I decided to update a set of packages that I maintain by
>>>> compiling them for the new version.  Everything worked fine except for one
>>>> package.  This package is unique (among the six I was working on) in that is
>>>> stored on a UNIX-based file server that is exported to the Windows network
>>>> via Samba.  The root of that network path is mapped to drive "N:" on the
>>>> local machine.
>>>>
>>>> 'Rcmd check' fails for this package under 2.9.1.  The error message in
>>>> '00install.out'  is:
>>>> "Error: ERROR: no permission to install to directory
>>>> 'N:/krc/Umpire/R-Package/Umpire.Rcheck'"
>>>>
>>>> 'Rcmd check' works for this package under 2.8.1.
>>>>
>>>> 'Rcmd check' works for this package if the directory is copied onto a
>>>> local hard drive instead of the network drive.
>>>>
>>>> 'Rcmd build' and 'Rcmd build --binary' work under both versions.
>>>>
>>>> It would be nice if someone could figure out what has changed and fix
>>>> it....
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>   Kevin Coombes
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>>>
>>>>         
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