[R] Using non-gcc compilers with install.packages()

[Roger Bivand]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Trond Hasle Amundsen wrote:

> Roger Bivand <Roger.Bivand at nhh.no> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Trond Hasle Amundsen wrote:
> >
> >> 
> >> Hi,
> >> 
> >> I have built R 2.1.1 on Solaris and OSF1, and used the operating
> >> system's native compiler set. This worked fine. However, when I try
> >> using install.packages() it insists on using g77 etc., which doesn't
> >> exist on those systems.
> >> 
> >> How can I specify which compilers to use? What about other
> >> compile-time options like LDFLAGS etc.?
> >> 
> >> NB! Please include me in the CC list, since I'm not a mailinglist
> >> member.
> >> 
> >> PS. I really like perl's approach to module building. When building
> >> perl modules, it defaults to the same compilers as perl was initially
> >> built with. This seems like a sane approach also for R IMHO.
> >
> > Indeed, R is pretty sane. Fine tuning is conveniently carried out by
> > editing the config.site file in the root source directory; LDFLAGS are on
> > line 138 of the released 2.1.1 source. Which particular packages have you
> > found showing this behaviour?
> 
> Hmm..
> 
>  - The following use correct c/c++ compilers, but fail to recognize
>    this as as Solaris system and uses -fPIC instead of -KPIC for
>    shared objects. They also use other gcc-specific options like
>    '-O2':
> 
>       RandomFields
>       geoR
>       geoRglm
>       rgl
>       
> 
>  - The following packages try g77 without first checking if it
>    exists. I did not specify the F77 variable when compiling R, since
>    it found f77 by itself. If all I need is to re-compile with the F77
>    variable set to 'f77', I won't mind.
> 
>       akima
>       sm
>       spatstat
>       splancs
> 
> There are problably more.. these two problem seem to be consistent
> across modules, but I can't be sure.

OK. When installing packages, the settings in the R_HOME/etc/Makeconf file 
are used, unless over-ridden by a src/Makevars file in the source package. 
Since I maintain splancs, I know that it does not have a src/Makevars 
file. That means that you are getting the R_HOME/etc/Makeconf settings 
generated at compile time. Can you confirm that your R_HOME/etc/Makeconf 
file has the compile time settings?

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 

-- 
Roger Bivand
Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen,
Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no