[R] Unable to compile "Matrix" package

[Douglas Bates]

On 5/16/07, Vittorio De Martino <vittorio at de-martino.it> wrote:
> After upgrading to 2.5.0 under freebsd 6.2 I updated all the add-on packages
> in an R session via update.packages(...). R was unable to install
> the "Matrix" package because it couldn't find the package.
> Therefore I downloaded the *.tar.gz from the CRAN site and issued
>
> R CMD INSTALL Matrix_0.99875-1.tar.gz
>
> but the comilation ended in an error     (see the complete attached
> r_log.tar.gz)
>
> cc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/local/lib/R/include -I/usr/local/lib/R/include  -I/usr/local/include  -D__NO_MATH_INLINES -I../UFc
> cc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/local/lib/R/include -I/usr/local/lib/R/include  -I/usr/local/include  -D__NO_MATH_INLINES -I../UFc
> ar -rucs ../COLAMD.a colamd.o colamd_global.oM
> ( cd Source ; make lib )M
> Error expanding embedded variable.M
> *** Error code 2M
> M
> Stop in /tmp/R.INSTALL.IuAhvE/Matrix/src/AMD.M
> *** Error code 1M
> M
> Stop in /tmp/R.INSTALL.IuAhvE/Matrix/src.M
> ERROR: compilation failed for package 'Matrix'M
> ** Removing '/usr/local/lib/R/library/Matrix'M
> NbBSD# exitMM
> exitM
>
> What shall I do?

As Duncan Murdoch once said, "in extreme cases you could read the
documentation".  :-)

The Matrix package requires that you use a version of `make' that is
compatible with GNU make.  Often this is called 'gmake' on BSD
systems.  If that is the case for you then setting the environment
variable

setenv MAKE gmake

should work.