[R-sig-Fedora] How to go about getting a change in the SPEC file from which R is built on EPEL?

[Paul Johnson]

Dear Tom

Thanks for answering.

Please let me check with the R Core Team on this question. Their
documents say "do not change ‘R_HOME/etc/Renviron’ itself. Note that
this is distinct from ‘R_HOME/etc/Renviron.site’."

That is just unclear enough to really confuse me. I hope they will
answer me and I will test it and let you know what works.

pj

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway
<tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:
> On 06/03/2010 12:14 PM, Paul Johnson wrote:
>> R_LIBS_SITE=${R_LIBS_SITE-'/usr/local/lib/R/site-library:/usr/lib/R/site-library:/usr/lib/R/library'}
>>
>> I wondered why the RedHat/Fedora install of the R RPM don't see
>> same/similar options. On Fedora/RedHat using R from RPM as distributed
>> on EPEL, all the packages go into /usr/lib/R and nonroot users are out
>> of luck, pretty much, unless they make some special effort.
>>
>> There was some debate here about what the folder in the user home dir
>> should be called, but none of us realized that R, as it comes from the
>> "factory", will work pretty much the way I want.
>>
>> The problem is that the RPM is built from a SPEC file that inserts a
>> line into R's Renviron that enforces a  variable
>> R_LIBS and it has some kind of super power to block the R_LIBS_SITE
>> and R_LIBS_USER variables.  Specifically, I mean this line in the SPEC
>> file.
>>
>> %build
>> Add PATHS to Renviron for R_LIBS
>> echo 'R_LIBS=${R_LIBS-'"'%{_libdir}/R/library:%{_datadir}/R/library'"'}'
>>>> >> etc/Renviron.in
>> On my systems, I comment out those lines in the spec file and then R
>> works the way the authors intended.  Judging from the comments that
>> Dirk Eddelbuettel inserted in the Debian packaging, sometime around
>> 2007 the R LIBS framework changed.
>
> So, a few corrections:
>
> On Fedora:
>
> * Architecture specific R modules go into %{_libdir}/R/library
> * Architecture independent R modules go into %{_datadir}/R/library
>
> I don't believe that without making some change, R will look in
> %{_datadir}/R/library at all.
>
> It looks like we should be overloading R_LIBS_SITE as opposed to R_LIBS.
>
> Easy peasy. :)
>
> Can you try changing that line in the spec file to this and confirm that
> it resolves the issue:
>
> echo
> 'R_LIBS_SITE=${R_LIBS_SITE-'"'/usr/local/lib/R/site-library:/usr/local/lib/R/library:%{_libdir}/R/library:%{_datadir}/R/library'"'}'
>>> etc/Renviron.in
>
> (Note: email client wrapped it, but it should be one long line)
>
> ~spot
>



-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas