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

[Simon Urbanek]

On Mar 5, 2009, at 12:47 , Simon Urbanek wrote:

> 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.
>

.. to be more precise the tar itself is on the DVD in /usr/bin since  
the DVD is the base system ..

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
>