[R] What are the necessary Oracle software to install and run ROracle ?

[Marc Schwartz]

On Jan 6, 2011, at 3:11 AM, thomas.carrie at bnpparibas.com wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I have applied all tips (except moving to different DB lib) :
> 
> move to R-2.12.1
> try R CMD INSTALL instead of install.packages('ROracle');
> run as root
> checked that I have full 32 bit env
> 
> It still fails with same error at installation when trying to load ROracle 
> lib
> 
> ---------------------
> ** testing if installed package can be loaded
> Error in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...) :
>  unable to load shared object 
> '/opt/R-2.12.1/lib/R/library/ROracle/libs/ROracle.so':
>  /opt/R-2.12.1/lib/R/library/ROracle/libs/ROracle.so: undefined symbol: 
> sqlprc
> ---------------------
> 
> I know have additional warnings because of my upgrade to R-2.12.1 :
> 
> Rd warning: ./man/DBIPreparedStatement-class.Rd:17: missing file link 
> 'dbPrepareStatement'
> 
> I know have 2 problems to solve :-)
> 
> what are the required Oracle tarballs for ROacle to install and run ?
> how do I get read of these warnings ?
> 
> Note that I try to use ROracle with Oracle 11.
> 
> Thanks for tips
> 

Thomas,

Three thoughts:

1. How did you install R? From source or from a pre-built binary? If the former, it is possible that ROracle requires that R be built as a shared library. The default for this option is 'no' when compiling from source, whereas the pre-built binaries typically are built as a shared library. If you did build from source, use --enable-R-shlib when you run ./configure and them recompile and install R.

2. Mathieu Drapeau posted about a possibly similar issue back in 2006 (http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/e2/help/06/09/1192.html). You may wish to contact him as he references a manual compilation. Hopefully his e-mail in that post is still valid.

3. If the above fails, I would contact the package maintainer (David James) for additional assistance. The package appears to not have been updated since late 2007 and who knows, perhaps something has changed in the intervening time frame that may require his attention either for the package itself or simply more clarity in the documentation of the installation process. The INSTALL file mentions that ROracle was last tested with R 2.3.0, which was released back in 2006.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz