[R-SIG-Finance] Problems with R Bloomberg

[Sean Carmody]

I have having a bit of difficulty getting RBloomberg working. A couple
of years ago I had it working without any trouble at a different firm,
so I suspect it's got something to do with my PC setup (e.g. Java
installation), but I cannot work out what that may be.

When I try to make a blpConnect connection I get the following error message:

> R version 2.13.2 (2011-09-30)
> rJava Version 0.9-1
> RBloomberg Version 0.4-150
> Error in .jinit() : cannot obtain Class.getSimpleName method ID
> Error in blpConnect.Java("warning", NULL, TRUE, NULL) :
>   Java environment not initialized. Please consult the rJava documentation. You may need to upgrade or install Java.

Note that if I try to call .jini() directly I get the following error:

> Error in .jinit() : cannot obtain Class.getSimpleName method ID

Subsequent calls get the following error:

> Error in .jinit() : unable to find the basic String class

Consulting with local IT and finding this page with Google:
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gMCP/INSTALL led me to suspect
that it was a problem with my Java path (or JAVA_HOME or CLASSPATH
variables). Note that I have multiple versions of Java installed, the
latest being 1.6.0_06. Trying to point PATH and JAVA_HOME to either
1.6 or 1.4 (and restarting R) did not resolve the issue.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Sean Carmody.