[R-SIG-Mac] R.app doesn't respect DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH

[Marc Schwartz]

On Aug 8, 2013, at 3:42 PM, Tom Schoenemann <toms at indiana.edu> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I am trying to get a custom R package (from another group) to run on my system. If I call it from the command line r, it works fine.  If I call it from R.app, it complains with:
> 
> Error in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...) : 
>  unable to load shared object '/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.0/Resources/library/ANTsR/libs/libRantsRegistration.so':
>  dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.0/Resources/library/ANTsR/libs/libRantsRegistration.so, 6): Library not loaded: libitkdouble-conversion-4.5.1.dylib
>  Referenced from: /Applications/image-processing/ANTsR/src/ANTS/ANTS-build/lib/libl_antsRegistration.dylib
>  Reason: image not found
> Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘ANTsR’
> 
> (ANTsR is the package I'm trying to get working)
> 
> I CAN get it to work by doing this on the command line first:
> 
> export DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/lib
> 
> and then also opening the R.app from the command line:
> 
> open /Applications/R.app/
> 
> However, I can't seem to get R.app to know about 
> export DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/lib
> unless I do it this way. 
> 
> So my questions are:
> 
> 1) how can I get R.app to know about the DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH?  I tried putting it into my .Renviron file, but it doesn't work  (maybe the syntax is supposed to be different?)
> 
> 2) why does r on the command line know about dynamic libraries, but R.app does not?? This seems like a bug, but maybe there is a good reason for it?
> 
> Thanks for any suggestions,
> 
> -Tom


In general, OSX GUI based apps do not inherit the shell environment. This is the case with Emacs on OSX for example.

What is the syntax that you used in .Renviron? It should be along the lines of:

  DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/lib

Note, do not use 'export' before the above. I just tried it here and it worked. 

Take a look at ?Startup for more details.

Regards,

Marc Schwartz