[R-pkg-devel] Using the correct R binary in configure script

[Jack Wasey]

Dirk, thanks for detailed reply. I may not have explained myself well
enough. I think the problem is that the recommended configure command
assumes 'R', not the actually running RD, Rdevel etc, when inferring
R_HOME. I can indeed set R_HOME, but I want my configure script to be able
to figure out which R is running, and thus which R_HOME to use when it is
not set.

Your RQuantLib seems to use the same bare 'R RHOME', yet if a package is R
CMD installed with RD, the configure script will in fact not run RD, but R,
to find R_HOME. I think it is usually not apparent because the compile
flags derived from R_HOME/bin/R CMD config are usually the same or similar,
but when, in my case, I have R compiled with OpenMP, and RD with
sanitizers, but without OpenMP, this fails because of the discrepancy.

Again, I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but I hope my explanation
of what I think is happening may help you guide me.

Best wishes,

Jack

On Saturday, September 26, 2015, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:

>
> On 26 September 2015 at 10:27, Jack Wasey wrote:
> | Having just read section 1.2 in Writing R extensions, a fragment of a
> | configure script is offered in order to determine the correct compiler
> | options. It starts by setting R_HOME with:
> |
> | : ${R_HOME=`R RHOME`}
> |
> |
> | `R` is called, even if, as in my case, `Rdevel` is the command used to
> | invoke package compilation. This can be overridden by setting R_HOME
> | in the call to `Rdevel`, but this seems to be undesirable, since the
> | whole point of a configure script is that it sets up the package given
> | the constraints of the compiling environment.
>
> [...]
> |
> | Am I doing something wrong?
>
> R_HOME is set to the result of the command R RHOME if and only it is unset.
>
> And it usually is unset.  This scheme generally works, I use it in a few
> packages on CRAN which had it for years -- and it was initially suggested
> to
> my by Kurt to make precisely _this_ work:  you set a different $PATH, or
> call
> a different R engine.  And the right thing happens:
>
>   edd at max:~$ R RHOME            # default installation
>   /usr/lib/R
>   edd at max:~$ RD RHOME           # alternate R-devel with a short-hand
> wrapper
>   /usr/local/lib/R-devel/lib/R
>   edd at max:~$ which RD
>   /home/edd/bin/RD
>   edd at max:~$
>
> The (nice) idea of calling R-devel just 'RD' appears due to Winston.  It
> works the same way if I just call R-devel-sh as I had for years:
>
>   edd at max:~$ R-devel.sh RHOME
>   /usr/local/lib/R-devel/lib/R
>   edd at max:~$
>
> So if you still think it fails for you, compare to e.g. the packages
>
>   nloptr
>   RProtoBuf
>   RQuantLib
>   RVowpalWabbit
>
> all of which use this scheme.
>
> Dirk
>
> --
> http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org
> <javascript:;>
>

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