[R-SIG-Mac] Problem with R CMD check, pdflatex

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Mon, 18 May 2009, Simon Urbanek wrote:

> Michael,
>
> CRAN R comes configured with MacTeX, see also
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-mac/2009-April/006129.html
>
> One of the problems is that PATH settings on OS X differ between LS-started 
> apps, shells etc., so it is in general problematic to get the path right in 
> all circumstances, so currently the CRAN binary assumes the most common 
> distribution.

True, but here we talking about R_PDFLATEXCMD, which is only used by 
Rd2dvi, which is AFAIK only called via R CMD and so from a shell. I 
would have thought that 'R_PDFLATEXCMD=pdflatex' (so looking on the 
path) was a better default for a binary distribution.

You can always set R_PDFLATEXCMD (or PDFLATEX) if the distributed 
binary is not right for you.

R CMD check does do a check for a workable pdflatex, but it seems it 
looks at the environment variable PDFLATEX not R_PDFLATEXCMD: I'll 
update it.


>
> Cheers,
> Simon
>
>
> On May 17, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Michael Höhle wrote:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>> Dear R-Sig-Mac,
>> 
>> Regarding Ji-Ping's problem I experienced a similar issue after having
>> upgraded to 2.9.0 on my Mac. The checking of the PDF manual causes
>> warnings and the following check of PDF version without index causes an
>> error.
>> 
>> $ tail -n 4 00check.log
>> * checking PDF version of manual ... WARNING
>> LaTeX errors when creating PDF version.
>> This typically indicates Rd problems.
>> * checking PDF version of manual without index ... ERROR
>> 
>> The interesting part is that when uploading the <package>.tar.gz file to
>> Uwe Ligges win-builder website, the package compiles without warnings or
>> errors on Windows.
>> 
>> Furthermore, the document compiles without any errors when manually
>> compiling the resulting <package>-manual.pdf in the ..Rcheck folder with
>> pdflatex.
>> 
>> However, when trying to generate the manual with:
>> 
>> $ R CMD Rd2dvi --pdf .
>> Hmm ... looks like a package
>> Converting Rd files to LaTeX ...
>> <snip>
>> Creating pdf output from LaTeX ...
>> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/Rd2dvi: line 228:
>> /usr/texbin/pdflatex: No such file or directory
>> Error in running pdflatex command ('/usr/texbin/pdflatex')
>> 
>> It appears as if the new 2.9.0 searches for pdflatex in
>> /usr/texbin/pdflatex
>> 
>> however, my pdflatex is located in e.g.
>> 
>> $ which pdflatex
>> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/i386-apple-darwin-current/pdflatex
>> 
>> When setting up a symlink to /usr/texbin R CMD check worked fine. So the
>> problem appears to have to do with R looking for pdflatex in the "wrong"
>> place?
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> P.S. For the record:
>> 
>> $ which pdflatex
>> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/i386-apple-darwin-current/pdflatex
>> 
>> $ latex --version
>> pdfeTeX 3.141592-1.30.4-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.5)
>> 
>>> sessionInfo()
>> R version 2.9.0 (2009-04-17)
>> i386-apple-darwin8.11.1
>> 
>> locale:
>> C
>> 
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
>
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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