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

[Simon Urbanek]

On Mar 5, 2009, at 4:42 , Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

> 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.
>

tar is part of the base system, i.e. it is always installed on OS X  
(no Xcode needed). On the Tiger DVD it's in
/System/Installation/Packages/BaseSystem.pkg
so you can restore it from there.

Cheers,
S



>
> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>>
>
> -- 
> 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