[R-SIG-Mac] Which command line tools for XCode 4.2.1

[Prof Brian Ripley]

 > Since I have heard that R and Bioconductor packages should in the future
 > be built with clang since Apple will be discontinuing support of gcc, my
 > question is:

I've not heard that, and you give no reference.  It's a pretty safe 
prediction except for timing: it could be a year away.  So your 
questions are not relevant until it is announced.  The documentation in 
the current R manuals is currently the correct advice.

Apple have announced the imminent discontinuation of llvm-gcc, and we 
take that to mean it will not be in Xcode 4.7 (or 5.0 if that is 
released first).  That would mean that once that is released, for most 
users of Lion and later llvm-gcc will disappear (as most users will get 
an automatic upgrade from the AppStore, or as in my case, the sysadmins 
will push out an update).

So we have been working hard on making R and CRAN packages installable 
using clang (there were too many problems at decision time for 3.0.0). 
How to switch a CRAN binary installation to use clang[++] is in the R >= 
3.0.0 manuals.  That may not work for packages with configure scripts: 
for that you may need R-patched.

There are now only seven CRAN packages which have bugs which stop 
installation under clang, and all the maintainers have been sent 
patches.  (Two of those do not install under gcc 4.8.0 either.)

Very likely at some point Simon will switch the CRAN binary distribution 
to use clang, but the real point is that many end-users will need to do 
so soon.

Given that R 3.0.0 supports OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), it is likely that we 
will do so for all of the 3.0.x series, even though 10.6 will almost 
certainly reach end-of-life well before 3.1.0 is due.  In that case the 
CRAN builder could stick with llvm-gcc for that series, but it may prove 
more convenient for end-users to switch to the distribution to clang 
before then.  Only time will tell.


On 17/04/2013 18:45, cstrato wrote:
> Dear Prof. Ripley, dear Simon,
>
> Thank you for this information about Xcode and CLTs.
>
> Since I have heard that R and Bioconductor packages should in the future
> be built with clang since Apple will be discontinuing support of gcc, my
> question is:
>
> - Which version of Xcode and/or CLTs should Snow Leopard users install
> in the future? (the last official version for Snow Leopard is xcode_3.2.6)
>
> - Which version of Xcode and/or CLTs should Lion/Mountain Lion users
> install so that they can still compile their packages with gcc, too?
> (the current version is xcode_4.6.2)
>
>  From the discussion I understand that it is no longer necessary to
> install Xcode at all, installing CLTs is sufficient. Is this  correct?
>
> Best regards,
> Christian
>
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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