[R] compile problem with gzfile

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Try compiling after configure --without-zlib (available in a less 
obselete system than 1.7.1).  This skips your system's zlib (which is 
apparently fragile) and compiles that in the R sources.

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, Thomas W Blackwell wrote:

> William  -
> 
> I don't have an answer for you, just some stream of
> consciousness rambling about how I would go about
> diagnosing this, if it were my problem.
> 
> In my installation directory (of R-1.7.1 on linux) there
> is a file  config.log  which contains all of the configure
> script's queries and replies.  Yes, there is a difference
> between configuring and compiling, but that file might be
> one place to start looking for where the problem begins.
> For me, 'grep gzfile config.log' returns no matching lines.

Nor should it: it is lib/zlib that is being invoked, and gzfile() is an R 
function.

> However, 'grep methods config.log' returns three lines
> which say
> 
> config.status:884: creating src/library/methods/DESCRIPTION
> config.status:884: creating src/library/methods/Makefile
> config.status:884: creating src/library/methods/src/Makefile
> 
> Seems odd that the 'methods' package would be the only one
> which fails to unpack.  

Not at all.  That is the only package that is installed as a compressed 
saved image rather than as a text source file.

> Perhaps the problem is more general,
> and, likely, more elementary.
> 
> Ah.  When you downloaded the source files, did you set 'binary'
> in ftp or equivalent ?
> 
> HTH  -  tom blackwell  -  u michigan medical school  -  ann arbor  -
> 
> On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, William D. McCoy wrote:
> 
> > I just finished compiling today's r-patched (R 1.8.1 patched) on my
> > old Sparc 20 using gcc 3.3 along with Sun's f77.
> >
> > As it was compiling, I noticed an error regarding gzfile.  The compile
> > process left the methods directory and continued on.  Obviously, there
> > was a problem, but I don't have the original error message from the
> > compiler.  After installing R, I get the following error message when
> > I start R:
> >
> > Error in open.connection(con, "rb") : unable to open connection
> > In addition: Warning message:
> > cannot open compressed file
> > `/usr/local/lib/R/library/methods/R/all.rda'
> >
> > A check for the file 'all.rda' showed that it does not exist.  I do
> > have gzip installed and I have libz.so.1.1.4 in /usr/local/lib.  I
> > realize this isn't much to go on, but does anyone have an idea what
> > might be wrong?  Has anyone had a similar error?
> >
> > --
> > William D. McCoy
> > Geosciences
> > University of Massachusetts
> > Amherst, MA  01003
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> 
> 

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595