[R-SIG-Mac] Compiling packages with specific gcc

[Steve Lianoglou]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if/where I can go to tell R to use a specific version of  
my gcc compiler when installing packages from source, via  
`install.packages("...", type='source')` or when running `R CMD  
INSTALL some_source_packge.tar.gz` from the command line.

The reason I ask is because I've downloaded gcc-4.4 from HPC/OSX[1],  
and it unfortunately puts the compilers in /usr/local/bin/gcc, w/o  
version info (it would be nice if it were /usr/local/bin/gcc-4.4). R  
tries to use this when compiling, but these compilers do not support  
the "-arch=..." flags, so it bombs.

I've been hunting around in the tools:::.install_packges code and also  
the "R Installation and Adminstration"[2] document, but can't find  
what I'm looking for. I have a feeling that perhaps I can put  
something into my ~/.R/Makevars, or ~/.R/Makevars-i386-apple- 
darwin8.11.1 file, but I'm just taking stabs at the dark, so not  
having much luck.

I can work around this by temporarily removing /usr/local/bin from my  
path when trying to `R CMD INSTALL` packages by source, but I was  
hoping there might be a more elegant solution. The fact that  
installing by source gets the `make` command from the system  
environment makes me a bit hopeful, but I'm not really sure.

Thanks for any help,

-steve

[1] HPC/OSX: http://hpc.sourceforge.net/
[2] R Install/admin: http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.html#Linear-algebra

--
Steve Lianoglou
Graduate Student: Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology
Weill Medical College of Cornell University

http://cbio.mskcc.org/~lianos