[R-gui] R-wxPython

[Mpiktas]

Hi,

> 
> 1. Install R with the shared library enabled.  (This can be
>     done with "configure --enable-shlib" when installing R
>     from source.  The shared library will normally appear in
>     /usr/local/lib/R/bin/libR.so)
>
In Debian this library comes with R package.

> 2. Install Python 2.2.x from source.  (RSPython doesn't seem to
>     like 2.3.x, so don't install that.  The reason I say to
>     install from source, is that you will need to create a
>     python shared library: libpython2.2.so, and this doesn't
>     seem to be distributed in the python RPM.)

I'm running Debian Sid and on my system python2.1, python2.2 and python2.3 are  
installed with their respective so libraries.

> 
> 3. Install RSPython 0.5-3 or later, being careful to link it
>     with the shared Python library, not a static library.
>     Check that RSPython.so depends on libpython2.2.so using
>     "ldd RSPython.so", and check that you have an
>     RSInternal.so symbolic link to RSPython.so in the
>     R/library/RSPython/libs/ directory.  To get RSPython
>     to link to libpython2.2.so, you may have to override the
>     automatic configure script, e.g.
>     "mv configure DONTconfigure" and manually edit Makefile,
>     Makevars, src/Makevars etc.

Fortunately I didn't have to change anything, except changing symlin /usr/bin/ 
python to point to /usr/bin/python2.2.

> 
> 4. Build wxPython 2.5.x from source (by first building
>      wxWidgets, distributed with wxPythonSrc).  You need to modify
>      wxPython/config.py as follows:
>        (i) Change self.root = "" to self.root = None
>        (ii) Change newLFLAGS=[] to
>               newLFLAGS = ['libpython2.2.so']
>      Copy libpython2.2.so to the wxPythonSrc/wxPython directory.
>      Note that you probably don't need all of the
>      optional-extras like OpenGL support, so you can build with
>      "python setup.py build CORE_ONLY=1" or
>      "python setup.py install CORE_ONLY=1" to just install the
>      essentials.
I've installed everything by using
python2.2 setup.py install --root=/usr/local/  WX_CONFIG=$WX_CONFIG  
WXPORT=gtk2 UNICODE=1

and then copying respective files to /usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/,
because contrary to manual in
http://www.wxpython.org/INSTALL.html
everything was installed in directory /usr/local/usr/ instead of /usr/local.

> 
> 5. Make sure that the new shared libraries are included in
>      LD_LIBRARY_PATH and have been registered with
>      /sbin/ldconfig.  Some Linux systems allow you to do this
>      without root privileges, while others don't.  I don't
>      have a root password, so I work mostly in my home area:
>      ~/usr/ etc. but occasionally I need to ask for help from
>      root.
> 
> 6. Run ldd on the wxPython shared libraries in
>      /usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/wx/ or wherever,
>      to check that they depend on libpython2.2.so, otherwise you
>      will get errors like "Undefined symbol PyExc_IOError".
> 
> In R, type:
> library(RSPython)
> 
> Ignore the following warning:
> "the Python callback manager has been registered implicitly
> using the defaults (referenceManager())!"
> 
> [We will use the wxPython 2.4.x method of importing the wx
> module. In order understand the difference between
> importPythonModule("wxPython.wx") and importPythonModule("wx"),
> please read:
> http://www.wxpython.org/migrationguide.php ]
> 
> Try importing the wxPython.wx module:
> 
> importPythonModule("wxPython.wx")
> 
> If it returns NULL with no errors, then it succeeded.  If it
> cannot be found, check your PYTHONPATH environment variable,
> and if necessary, modify the Python search path within R
> as follows:
> importPythonModule("sys")
> .Python("path",.module="sys") # Check the current Python path.
> path <- "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages/wx"
> .PythonEval(paste("path.append('",path,"')",sep=""),.module="sys")
> # Repeat for other paths you want to add.

In my case .Python("path",.module="sys") produced
 [1] "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library/RSPython/Python"
 [2] "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library/RSPython/libs"
 [3] "/usr/lib/python2.2"
 [4] "/usr/lib/python2.2/plat-linux2"
 [5] "/usr/lib/python2.2/lib-tk"
 [6] "/usr/lib/python2.2/lib-dynload"
 [7] "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/site-packages"
 [8] "/usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages"
 [9] "/usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages/Numeric"
[10] "/usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages/gtk-2.0"
[11] "/usr/lib/site-python"

and importPythonModule("wxPython.wx") worked, without changing anything.

> 
> Now create a simple wxPython module, testRwxPy.py :
> -----------------------------
> import wxPython.wx
> from wxPython.wx import *
> 
> def wxRPyApp():
>         app = wxApp()
>         return app
> -----------------------------
> 
> Make sure testRwxPy.py can be found in your Python search path,
> (using the technique above) and try:
> 
> .Python("wxRPyApp",.module="testRwxPy")
> 
> When running under R -d gdb, I get a segmentation fault which
> appears to come from gdk_init_check().  :-(

I got
Failing in conversion from Python object: Unhandled case!
NULL

and no segmentation fault. Is this suppose to happen or not? Feel free to ask  
for any details. Hope this report helps somehow.

Vaidotas Zemlys