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

[Kasper Daniel Hansen]

My tar is in /usr/bin. According to your output, it is not present in  
that directory. As Kjell, I have Xcode install, but I am pretty sure  
tar is available on a standard (non-Xcode installed) Mac system -  
otherwise the binary distribution would have a bit of a problem.

My conclusion is that you somehow manage to delete tar from your  
system. How you did that I have no idea about. You could
  a) restore from backups (you do have backups, right)
  b) Install Xcode and see if it helps (I doubt that has anything to  
do with it, but it might restore stuff...)
  c) re-install your system
  d) install tar your self

d) is probably not too smart unless you really know what you are  
doing. If you have access to another machine with the same OS version  
you could try copy /usr/bin/tar. If you don't have backups...

Kasper

On Mar 5, 2009, at 1:22 , 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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