[R-SIG-Mac] Error loading packages, command 'tar' missing from path?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

To Simon: this was Mac-specific as only on Macs does install.packages 
use this piece of code (and we had a surplus comma in the gettextf 
call).

I've never used 10.4.11 and don't know if /usr/bin/tar is part of the 
base OS or of Xcode on that version.  I was hoping the Mac aficionados 
would know, my main reason for referring Andrew here.


On Thu, 5 Mar 2009, Andrew J. Rominger wrote:

> Thanks to all for your help and suggestions.  I apparently did somehow delete tar.  In the terminal i get:
>
> $ which tar
> no tar in /usr/bin /bin /usr/sbin /sbin /usr/local/bin /usr/X11R6/bin
>
> Sorry to be a little slow, but I'm not familiar with working in the terminal so I'm sure there is a way to "reset" the path--but I don't know how to do it.  And I don't want to mess anything up any more!  Could anyone direct me as to where I can properly learn about resetting the path to include tar?
>
> Thanks very much--
> Andy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Simon Urbanek" <simon.urbanek at r-project.org>
> To: "Andrew J. Rominger" <rominger at stanford.edu>
> Cc: r-sig-mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 7:31:26 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Error loading packages, command 'tar' missing from path?
>
>
> On Mar 3, 2009, at 17:52 , Andrew J. Rominger wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> My appologies for any possible cross-posting--I originally posted a
>> version of this to R-Help, but was refered to r-sig-mac because
>> apparently my problem is mac-specific.
>>
>
> It is specific to your system - experience (see archives) shows that
> either you somehow changed the default PATH and it doesn't include /
> usr/bin anymore or you have somehow deleted tar (/usr/bin/tar).
>
> Cheers,
> S
>
>
>> I'm running R2.8.1 on a Mac OS 10.4.11.  While trying to install the
>> package gdata, I was presented with the following (error at end of
>> report):
>>
>>> install.packages("gdata")
>> also installing the dependency ‘gtools’
>>
>> trying URL 'http://cran.stat.ucla.edu/bin/macosx/universal/contrib/2.8/gtools_2.5.0-1.tgz'
>> Content type 'application/x-tar' length 85484 bytes (83 Kb)
>> opened URL
>> ==================================================
>> downloaded 83 Kb
>>
>> trying URL 'http://cran.stat.ucla.edu/bin/macosx/universal/contrib/2.8/gdata_2.4.2.tgz'
>> Content type 'application/x-tar' length 539301 bytes (526 Kb)
>> opened URL
>> ==================================================
>> downloaded 526 Kb
>>
>> /bin/sh: line 1: tar: command not found
>> 2009-03-02 20:42:06.081 R[357] tossing reply message sequence 3 on
>> thread 0x1ce3ae0
>> Error in sprintf(gettext(fmt, domain = domain), ...) :
>>  argument is missing, with no default
>>
>>
>> It seems that 'tar' is missing which (I'm guessing) leads to an
>> error in sprintf().  I've never been presented with this error
>> before.  I tried loading various other packages and received the
>> same error.  When the error first appeared, I was running R2.5.3.
>> After upgrading to R2.8.1 the error persists.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any help--
>> Andy Rominger
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>
>
> -- 
> Andrew Rominger
> Department of Biology
> Stanford University
> rominger at stanford.edu
> (650) 862-6063
>
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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