[R-SIG-Mac] source() command and HTTPS urls in R-3.2.2 beta

[peter dalgaard]

> On 06 Aug 2015, at 22:03 , Dan Tenenbaum <dtenenba at fredhutch.org> wrote:
> 
>>> This is the CRAN binary build of R-3.2.2 beta for Snow Leopard.
>>> 
>>> I thought https urls were supposed to be supported in this version?
>>> The same command works in the same version of R on linux, windows,
>>> and Mavericks (albeit with a message on Mavericks and Linux saying
>>> 'https:// URLs are not supported by the default method: trying
>>> "libcurl"').
>>> 
>>> Maybe a misconfiguration in the way that the binary was built for
>>> Snow Leopard?
>> 
>> What does capabilities() say about libcurl?
>> 
> 
> FALSE.
> Dan

That'll explain it. It can't try libcurl if it isn't there.

However, the Snow Leopard builds are being phased out (check out the note on https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/). It is not obvious (to say the least) that there will be a 3.2.2 version - the "3.2.2 beta" may just exist due to inertia.

I don't quite know the specifics, but I think the underlying issue is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep a build system running and updated on an OS that isn't even supported by Apple any more. There have been some silliness with linking libcurl on OS X, which makes it even less attractive to mess with the build setup.  

Of course, nothing is keeping you from making your own local build, perhaps using homebrew...

-pd

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com