[R-pkg-devel] Possible Rtools path problem

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 25/02/2019 11:01 a.m., Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> 
> The R-on-Windows FAQ has recommends to NOT install in a path with spaces.
> 
> The R Installer on Windows defaults to a path with spaces.
> 
> I cannot reconcile it either. Such is life, sometimes.
> 
> But when I had to work on that platform in the past I put my open source
> stuff into c:/opt/ -- so maybe try reinstalling?
> 
> Rtools also had (has ?) a gotcha requiring c:/ placement.
> 

Those might be the problem, but to me it looks more like a path order 
problem:

> *My path.getenv is : *
> 
> 
>  [1] "C:\\Users\\ USER    \\Documents\\R\\R-3.5.2\\bin\\i386"
> 
>  [2] "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Intel\\Intel(R) Management Engine
> Components\\iCLS\\"
>  [3] "C:\\Program Files\\Intel\\Intel(R) Management Engine
> Components\\iCLS\\"
>  [4] "C:\\WINDOWS\\system32"
> 
>  [5] "C:\\WINDOWS"
> 
>  [6] "C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\Wbem"
> 
>  [7] "C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\"
> 
>  [8] "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Intel\\Intel(R) Management Engine
> Components\\DAL"
>  [9] "C:\\Program Files\\Intel\\Intel(R) Management Engine
> Components\\DAL"
> [10] "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Intel\\Intel(R) Management Engine
> Components\\IPT"
> [11] "C:\\Program Files\\Intel\\Intel(R) Management Engine
> Components\\IPT"
> [12] "C:\\Program Files\\CMake\\bin"
> 
> [13] "C:\\Program Files\\R\\R-3.5.0\\bin"
> 
> [14] "C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\OpenSSH\\"
> 
> [15] "C:\\HashiCorp\\Vagrant\\bin"
> 
> [16] "C:\\ProgramData\\chocolatey\\bin"
> 
> [17] "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft SQL Server\\130\\Tools\\Binn\\"
> 
> [18] "C:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk1.8.0_181\\bin"
> 
> [19] "C:\\Qt\\Tools\\QtCreator\\bin"
> 
> [20] "C:\\Qt\\5.11.1\\msvc2017_64\\bin"
> 
> [21] "C:\\Windows\\System32"
> 
> [22] "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\GnuWin32\\bin"
> 
> [23] "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\cmd"
> 
> [24] "C:\\Rtools\\bin"
> 
> [25] "C:\\Rtools\\MinGW\\bin"
> 
> [26] "C:\\Users\\ USER    \\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps"
> 
> [27] "C:\\Users\\ USER    \\AppData\\Local\\atom\\bin"
> 
> [28] "C:\\Users\\ USER    \\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\MiKTeX
> 2.9\\miktex\\bin\\x64\\"

The OP has 23 directories in the path ahead of the Rtools directories; 
I'd guess one of them contains a like-named command that is messing 
things up.  From the message

> 1: In FUN(X[[i]], ...) : this requires 'nm' to be on the PATH

my guess would be that there's a bad 'nm.exe' somewhere in there.  The 
real one is likely in directory 25 (I haven't got current Rtools 
installed, so can't tell), but if there's another one earlier, things 
won't work.

I'd recommend putting the Rtools directories first.  That might mess up 
one of the other programs that also wants to be first, so I wouldn't do 
it globally, just set up a batch or cmd file to modify the path when you 
want to use Rtools.

Duncan Murdoch