[Rd] Problem building (binary) packages for Windows

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 5/15/2009 8:10 AM, Peter Ruckdeschel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am having a problem building binary packages for
> Windows recently.
> 
> Normally, I use the "Murdoch-Sutherland" tool set,
>        http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/
> just build source packages by
>        R CMD build <pkgname>
> and install these with
>        R CMD INSTALL <pkgname>
> 
> But now, for someone without having this tool set installed,
> under Win XP, with R-2.10dev (details below), I tried
> building a binary version with
>        R CMD build --binary <pkgname>
> which used to work for me until recently (unfortunately I
> cannot specify "recently" here...)
> 
> Trying to install the created .zip file with
>        utils:::menuInstallLocal()
> 
> I get an error message
> "
> package 'distr' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
> Error in unpackPkg(pkgs[i], pkgnames[i], lib) :
>   malformed bundle DESCRIPTION file, no Contains field
> "
> 
> Now AFAICS I have not tried to build a bundle ...
> 
> Searching the help archives, I found a posting by Uwe Ligges,
>        http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.r.general/64574/
> saying that
>        R CMD INSTALL --build
> was preferable to
>        R CMD build --binary
> --- in which respect? Would this avoid the error message?

The main benefit is that links between help pages will be more likely to 
be set correctly.

> 
> So far I have not come across this error message, and
> packages I built with
>        R CMD build --binary
> installed correctly with
>        utils:::menuInstallLocal()
> 
> Actually, the corresponding zip-file containes
> a second DESCRIPTION file in the top folder, like a
> bundle, which I think is the culpit, and after
> deleting this installation worked out fine.
> 
> Could you please check what caused this second
> DESCRIPTION file to be generated?

You can't have two files with the same name in the same folder in 
Windows.  However, Windows Explorer by default hides file extensions, so 
it may look as though you do.  Was the file you deleted called 
DESCRIPTION.in?

I use Rcmd INSTALL --build most of the time and have never seen your 
error.  I just tried Rcmd build --binary and the file installed okay. 
Can you give a recipe to reproduce the error?

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> Any suggestions welcome,
> 
> Best, Peter
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> platform       i386-pc-mingw32
> 
> arch           i386
> 
> os             mingw32
> 
> system         i386, mingw32
> 
> status         Under development (unstable)
> 
> major          2
> 
> minor          10.0
> 
> year           2009
> 
> month          04
> 
> day            26
> 
> svn rev        48404
> 
> language       R
> 
> version.string R version 2.10.0 Under development (unstable) (2009-04-26
> r48404)
> 
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