[R] configure can't find readline -- but it's there!

[Marc Schwartz]

Hi Sam,

It has been almost 3 years since I last used Linux (Fedora), but if memory serves using, as root, either:

 yum provides readline.h

or perhaps

 yum search readline

might be possible ways of getting the names of the relevant RPMs in the repos. You might have to tweak the 'readline' argument to get it to work (eg. readline* or something similar).

The need for the *-devel RPMs is referenced in the R Installation and Administration manual (Appendix A) and is a FAQ over the years here.

One other comment, which you may not be aware of. Pre-built R binaries are available for RHEL and CentOS via the EPEL:

  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

Adding the EPEL repos to your system would then allow you to install R using yum as root:

  yum install R

rather than building from source. R 2.14.0 is there now, however, R 2.14.1 is not yet present. I would guess that Tom Callaway et al would be working on that RSN.
  
Regards,

Marc

On Dec 30, 2011, at 10:50 AM, Cable, Sam B Civ USAF AFMC AFRL/RVBXI wrote:

> Thanks, Marc.  That did it.  I thought "yum provides" would have been
> smart enough to tell me about any "devel" package, but I guess I have
> something left to learn there.  Thanks.
> 
> --Sam
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc Schwartz [mailto:marc_schwartz at me.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 9:28 PM
> To: Cable, Sam B Civ USAF AFMC AFRL/RVBXI
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] configure can't find readline -- but it's there!
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The typical solution would be to install the readline-devel RPM, which
> is where the header files, etc. would be available. 
> 
> So as root:
> 
>  yum install readline-devel
> 
> or if you have sudo enabled:
> 
>  sudo yum install readline-devel
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Marc Schwartz