[R] Running rpy produces the error message undefined symbol: KillAllDevices

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Even in R 2.6.2 the symbol is Rf_KillAllDevices, so this is an rpy 
installation issue (one that I cannot reproduce).

Rpy has a mailing list, so why ask here and not there?  (In any case, the 
convention is that questions about the development version of R should be 
asked on the R-devel list.)

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> Bob and Deb wrote:
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I've been using R for a while and decided to test R from the svn trunk.  I
>> know that trunk is not stable, but I wanted to see if I can install and run
>> the latest rpy on my Ubuntu 7.10 box.  It installed ok, but I got the
>> runtime error message:
>>
>> $ python
>> Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Mar  7 2008, 04:10:12)
>> [GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)] on linux2
>> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>
>>>>> import rpy
>>>>>
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>   File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/rpy.py", line 134, in <module>
>>     """ % RVERSION)
>> RuntimeError: /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/_rpy2070.so: undefined
>> symbol: KillAllDevices
>>
>>       RPy module can not be imported. Please check if your rpy
>>       installation supports R 2.7.0. If you have multiple R versions
>>       installed, you may need to set RHOME before importing rpy. For
>>       example:
>>
>>      >>> from rpy_options import set_options
>>      >>> set_options(RHOME='c:/progra~1/r/rw2011/')
>>      >>> from rpy import *
>>
>>
> I think this is self-inflicted. You are expecting Rpy to support R
> version 2.7.0 before it is released.
>
> I'm not familiar with  Rpy, but at the very least I'd expect that you
> need to reinstall the package with R 2.7.0 to obtain _rpy2070.so.

I think the name indicates that it was installed under 2.7.0.  But Rpy is 
looking for an installed version of R (in system directories), and that 
seems rash for an unstable pre-alpha version of R.

> (What is a Windows path to the install directory of a long obsolete R
> version doing output on Ubuntu, BTW?)
>> Btw, RHOME on my computer is located at /usr/local/lib/R and I have compiled
>> R shared library directory in my ld.so.conf.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>
>
> --
>   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
>  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
> (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45) 35327918
> ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45) 35327907
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

-- 
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