[R] compile problem with gzfile

[William D. McCoy]

Thanks to Brian Ripley and Thomas Blackwell for responses concerning
my problem.  I am following Brian's suggestion and recompiling after
configuring with --without-zlib.  The compile takes a couple of hours
on the old Sparc 20, but the process has passed the point where it
failed before and has successfully completed compiliation of the
methods package.  So it looks like it will be alright.

Prof Brian Ripley writes:
 > 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
 > 
 > ______________________________________________
 > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
 > https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
 > 

-- 
William D. McCoy
Geosciences
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA  01003