[R] error when installing zoo package on macos: file 'DESCRIPTION' does not exist

[Roger Bos]

I was able to upgrade to the latest version of the zoo package on my linux
machine, but my mac is given an error message that the DESCRIPTION does not
exist.  I am sure that is not the real problem, but I don't know how to
debug or figure out what the real problem is.  The output is below and my
sessionInfo() is as follows:

R version 3.6.0 (2019-04-26)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Mojave 10.14.5

Matrix products: default
BLAS:
/System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/libBLAS.dylib
LAPACK:
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  tools     methods
base

other attached packages:
[1] googledrive_0.1.3   alphavantager_0.1.1

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] Rcpp_1.0.1        rstudioapi_0.10   magrittr_1.5      usethis_1.5.0
  devtools_2.0.2    tidyselect_0.2.5  pkgload_1.0.2
 [8] R6_2.4.0          rlang_0.3.4       dplyr_0.8.1       pkgbuild_1.0.3
 sessioninfo_1.1.1 cli_1.1.0         withr_2.1.2
[15] remotes_2.0.4     fortunes_1.5-4    rprojroot_1.3-2   assertthat_0.2.1
 digest_0.6.18     tibble_2.1.1      crayon_1.3.4
[22] processx_3.3.1    purrr_0.3.2       callr_3.2.0       fs_1.3.1
 ps_1.3.0          curl_3.3          testthat_2.1.1
[29] memoise_1.1.0     glue_1.3.1        compiler_3.6.0    pillar_1.4.0
 backports_1.1.4   desc_1.2.0        prettyunits_1.0.2
[36] pkgconfig_2.0.2


install.packages("zoo")

  There is a binary version available but the source version is later:
    binary source needs_compilation
zoo  1.8-5  1.8-6              TRUE

Do you want to install from sources the package which needs compilation?
(Yes/no/cancel) yes
installing the source package ‘zoo’

trying URL 'https://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/zoo_1.8-6.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 853504 bytes (833 KB)
==================================================
downloaded 833 KB

* installing *source* package ‘zoo’ ...
** package ‘zoo’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** libs
clang -I"/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/include" -DNDEBUG
-I../inst/include  -isysroot
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk -I/usr/local/include
 -fPIC  -Wall -g -O2  -c coredata.c -o coredata.o
clang -I"/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/include" -DNDEBUG
-I../inst/include  -isysroot
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk -I/usr/local/include
 -fPIC  -Wall -g -O2  -c init.c -o init.o
clang -I"/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/include" -DNDEBUG
-I../inst/include  -isysroot
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk -I/usr/local/include
 -fPIC  -Wall -g -O2  -c lag.c -o lag.o
clang -dynamiclib -Wl,-headerpad_max_install_names -undefined
dynamic_lookup -single_module -multiply_defined suppress
-L/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/lib -L/usr/local/lib -o zoo.so
coredata.o init.o lag.o -F/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/.. -framework R
-Wl,-framework -Wl,CoreFoundation
installing to
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/library/00LOCK-zoo/00new/zoo/libs
** R
** demo
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
Error in tools:::.read_description(file) :
  file 'DESCRIPTION' does not exist
Calls: suppressPackageStartupMessages ... withCallingHandlers ->
.getRequiredPackages -> <Anonymous> -> <Anonymous>
Execution halted
ERROR: lazy loading failed for package ‘zoo’
* removing
‘/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/library/zoo’
* restoring previous
‘/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/library/zoo’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package ‘zoo’ had non-zero exit status

The downloaded source packages are in
‘/private/var/folders/pf/8_rzvpr95ybbr5n31grmh4dc0000gp/T/RtmpzRQrtQ/downloaded_packages’

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