[R] R CMD build produces tar error under FreeBSD 5.4

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Eric van Gyzen wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 25, 2005 at 12:07:02PM +0100, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>> On Sun, 25 Sep 2005, Andrew Robinson wrote:
>>
>>> Hi R-helpers,
>>>
>>> I am trying to build a package under FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE #0 using R
>>> Version 2.1.1.
>>>
>>> I have constructed a package using package.skeleton(), when I try
>>>
>>> $ R CMD build foo
>>> * checking for file 'foo/DESCRIPTION' ... OK
>>> * preparing 'foo':
>>> * checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
>>> * cleaning src
>>> * removing junk files
>>> tar: Option -L is not permitted in mode -x
>>> Error: cannot open file 'foo/DESCRIPTION' for reading
>>>
>>> foo/DESCRIPTION exists and the permissions are correct. The same
>>> command works under Linux Fedora 2.  The man pages on each OS imply
>>> that tar differs across the two platforms.  Does anyone have any
>>> thoughts on a work-around?
>>
>> No, because R does not use tar -L (which is to do with tape lengths on GNU
>> tar).
>>
>> It does use tar chf and tar xhf.  The h modifier would appear to be
>> applicable only to dumps, so at a wild guess the error message means -h is
>> not permitted.  Try replacing xhf by xf.
>
> FreeBSD >= 5.3 uses bsdtar.  Previous versions used GNU tar.
>
> In bsdtar, -h is a synonym for -L, and -L means:
>
>     -L      (c and r mode only) All symbolic links will be followed.  Nor-
>             mally, symbolic links are archived as such.  With this option,
>             the target of the link will be archived instead.
>
> The man page for bsdtar doesn't indicate an option to dereference
> symlinks during extraction.  :(

Thanks for the confirmation (which I had managed to find from

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tar&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.4-RELEASE+and+Ports&format=html

).  R does not need xh here, and I have changed it in 2.2.0-beta.

I do suggest you submit a bug report on the incorrect error message, 
though, which should refer to the option used, not one that is not used.


-- 
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