[R] Failure to compile on Itanium

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, F. Tusell wrote:

> I am trying to compile R on an Itanium machine running Red Hat 7.2 and 
> gcc version 2.96.

> The build fails with the following symptoms:
> 
> g77  -fPIC  -g -O2 -c cmplx.f -o cmplx.lo
> g77  -fPIC  -g -O2 -c cmplxblas.f -o cmplxblas.lo
> gcc -shared -L/usr/local/lib  -o libRlapack.so dlapack0.lo dlapack1.lo
> dlapack2.lo dlapack3.lo cmplx.lo  cmplxblas.lo  -L/usr/local/lib
> -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/ia64-redhat-linux/2.96
> -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/ia64-redhat-linux/2.96/../../.. -lg2c -lm
> /usr/bin/ld: open.o: @gprel relocation against dynamic symbol f__buflen
> /usr/bin/ld: open.o: @gprel relocation against dynamic symbol f__buflen
> /usr/bin/ld: open.o: @gprel relocation against dynamic symbol f__buflen
> /usr/bin/ld: open.o: @gprel relocation against dynamic symbol f__buflen
> /usr/bin/ld: open.o: @gprel relocation against dynamic symbol f__buflen
> /usr/bin/ld: open.o: @gprel relocation against dynamic symbol f__buflen
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> make[4]: *** [libRlapack.so] Error 1
> make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/etptupaf/R-1.9.0/src/modules/lapack'
> make[3]: *** [R] Error 2
> make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/etptupaf/R-1.9.0/src/modules/lapack'
> make[2]: *** [R] Error 1
> make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/etptupaf/R-1.9.0/src/modules'
> make[1]: *** [R] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/etptupaf/R-1.9.0/src'
> make: *** [R] Error 1
> 
> I searched and found in
> 
>   _http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/devel/04a/0679.html_
> 
> an answer from BD Ripley to a query with exactly the same problem, 

That's not who that page says the author was.

> suggesting that a newer version of gcc be used.

It's essential to allow compiled Fortran code to be included in a dynamic 
library on your platform, as was explained on that page.

> This solution is out of reach for me, as the system managers are not 
> willing to undertake
> any changes. 

What is the problem with your compiling gcc-3.4.0 and using that?  It is
no more complex that compiling R.

> They suggest instead that I use the "recommended" compilers, ecc and
> ecf. I have tried to do so with no success so far: the configure script
> fails to find convenient values for the different flags to be set. I
> have set some manually (in config.site), to no avail so far. Has anyone
> compiled R with ecc and ecf? Or with gcc-2.96?  I would be grateful if
> he/she could share his/her config.site settings. Best, ft.

The alternative is to try to compile a version of R which is as out of 
date as your OS and gcc compiler.

-- 
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