If we go the route of converting Perl scripts into windows executables, then there is the Perl Power Tools (ppt) project for perl that aims to create a cross platform set of common Unix tools (see  http://sourceforge.net/projects/ppt/, or the current toolset can be downloaded from CPAN).  The find utility has been included for a while and I think we could get the author of that one to help.  
 
If all the Unix tools needed by R are included in ppt, then it may be possible to use those in Rtools for an overall smaller footprint.  The find perl script could be compiled to an .exe and given a different name so that it would not conflict with the windows find command.
 
There would need to be some switch or something to indicate using these tools rather than the standards for those that don't use the Rtools (but insteal installed perl and the other tools).

________________________________

From: Duncan Murdoch [mailto:murdoch@stats.uwo.ca]
Sent: Sat 5/5/2007 6:06 AM
To: Gabor Grothendieck
Cc: Greg Snow; Doran, Harold; r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] [SPAM] - Re: R package development in windows - BayesianFilter detected spam



On 05/05/2007 8:00 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> I think that should be the default in order to protect the user.  Protecting
> the user from this sort of annoying conflict is important for a professionally
> working product that gets along with the rest of the Windows system.

I don't, because R building requires simulation of a subset of a Unix
environment, so in case of a Unix/Windows conflict, Unix should win.
For example none of the Makefiles use backslashes as path separators,
they all use Unix-style forward slashes.

Duncan Murdoch


>
> On 5/5/07, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch@stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
>> On 04/05/2007 9:32 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>> It certainly would be excellent if installing perl could be eliminated.
>>>
>>> One additional thing that I really dislike about the R installation is that
>>> one needs "find" on one's path and that conflicts with "find" on Windows
>>> so other applications unrelated to R that use scripts can suddenly break
>>> because of R.  If that could be solved at the same time it would be nice.
>> At a minimum we should be able to wrap the calls to find in a macro, so
>> you could change the macro in MkRules and rename your copy from Rtools
>> to remove the conflict.  I'll take a look.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>>> On 5/4/07, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch@stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
>>>> On 04/05/2007 4:25 PM, Greg Snow wrote:
>>>>> I have used the pp/par combination for Perl before.  It is pretty straight forward to convert an existing perl script into a stand alone windows executable.
>>>>>
>>>>> Both the Activestate licence and the Perl Artistic licence allow for embedding a script and perl interpreter together and distributing the result.
>>>>>
>>>>> The current perl script(s) used for the R package build package could easily be converted to a 'stand alone' windows executable and be distributed with Rtools for those who do not want to install Perl themselves.
>>>>>
>>>>> The only drawback is that even a "Hello World" script will result in over a meg sized executable (due to the perl interpreter being included).
>>>> I took a quick look at the PAR page on CPAN, and it seems possible to
>>>> build a DLL that incorporates the interpreter, and then each individual
>>>> script .exe could be much smaller.  I'll see if I can get that to work;
>>>> it would be really nice to be able to drop the Perl requirement.  If we
>>>> could do that, I'd include the command line tools plus the compiled
>>>> scripts with the basic R distribution, so you could easily build simple
>>>> packages.  The Rtools.exe installer would then just need to install the
>>>> MinGW compilers for packages containing compiled code, and a few extras
>>>> needed for building R.
>>>>
>>>> I don't really know Perl, so I might be asking for advice if I get stuck.
>>>>
>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>> From: r-help-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch on behalf of Gabor Grothendieck
>>>>> Sent: Fri 5/4/2007 11:55 AM
>>>>> To: Doran, Harold
>>>>> Cc: r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch; Duncan Murdoch
>>>>> Subject: Re: [R] [SPAM] - Re: R package development in windows - BayesianFilter detected spam
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Just googling I found this:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=186402
>>>>>
>>>>> On 5/4/07, Doran, Harold <HDoran@air.org> wrote:
>>>>>>> The best, of course, would be to get rid of Perl altogether.
>>>>>> In Python, it is possible to make standalone executables. Is it possible
>>>>>> to also do this in Perl, then one could eliminate a perl install. Or, is
>>>>>> it possible to use Python to accomplish what perl is currently doing? I
>>>>>> may be getting in over my head here since I really don't know what perl
>>>>>> is doing under the hood.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Harold
>>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>>> R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch 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.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>




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