[R-SIG-Mac] 2.7.0 for 64-bit running Leopard

[Prof Brian Ripley]

I think you need to distinguish a release of R (which is a source tarball) 
from a binary redistribution.  The sources are set up to allow you to 
build x86_64 on MacOS, and also multiple architectures (and have been for 
some time if you don't want MacOS-specific features such as quartz() -- 
that came in 2.7.0).

On Wed, 7 May 2008, Michael Braun wrote:

> Is it possible to get some clarification regarding what is considered a 
> "release" configuration of R and what is considered "experimental?"  I would 
> like to run a 64-bit build of R 2.7.0 on an x86_64 Mac Pro with 18GB of RAM 
> running Leopard (10.5.2).  When I install the precompiled "universal" binary,

According to the FAQ 2.5, 'universal' means Intel and PowerPC.  The 
package instructions in 5.4 are for i386 and ppc.

> it appears that I am getting a 32-bit build (I think this because I cannot 
> allocate objects of size >3GB and because .Platform$r_arch="i386").

The real test is .Machine$sizeof.pointer .  'r_arch' is just a label.

> I checked out the r.research.att.com site, but I am hesitant to install 
> an "experimental" build.  Also, I tried compiling R myself, but ran into 
> a large number of issues (including not passing make check, which I now 
> see is addressed in the FAQ).

> So my question is, once 10.5.3 is released, should the binary I download from 
> CRAN install a 64-bit version of R?  Will I need to compile from source?  Or 
> am I still too far ahead of the curve?

I suggest you do compile from sources.  I find Apple's compilers flaky and 
that is the issue.  Despite the comment in the FAQ, I've had no problems 
with x86_64 on MacOS 10.5.2 *if I turn optimization off* .  The issue with 
log10 appears to be on-CPU calls and not calls to the log10 in libm.
(OTOH, since I get higher performance from x86_64 Linux and Solaris boxes, 
I haven't done extensive testing.)  Note that this may not be the only 
such issue: gcc 4.3.x has a similar problem with sqrt on x86_64 when 
optimizing.

You'll need to compile everything from sources (including all packages), 
and it does sometimes help to have the same compilers used throughout.


> Thanks,
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Michael Braun
> Assistant Professor of Management Science (Marketing Group)
> MIT Sloan School of Management
> One Amherst St., E40-169
> Cambridge, MA 02142
> braunm at mit.edu
> 617-253-3436
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595