[R-SIG-Mac] R install on silicon Mac lacks long.double capability

[Duncan Murdoch]

You will have to rebuild it from source with compilers that support 
those items.  I'm not sure why libxml is missing, but long.double is 
missing because the Apple silicon doesn't natively support it, and the 
compiler that R Core uses doesn't emulate it, or the emulation it offers 
is not worth using.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can tell you whether this is 
feasible or not.  I trust Simon's decisions, so I'm pretty sure it's not 
desirable.

Duncan Murdoch

On 2025-10-23 5:35 p.m., Naresh Gurbuxani wrote:
> On my new macbook pro, I installed R using package installer R-4.5.1-arm64.pkg
> My installation lacks long.double and libxml capabilities.  How can these be enabled?
> 
> My installation was in two steps:
> 1.  Install Xcode developer tools (sudo xcode-select install), GNU fortran compiler (gfortran-14.2-universal.pkg at cran), gnu readline, liblzma, and pcre2 (using macports), texlive, and Xquartz.  Install R using above package installer.
> 2.  Source install.R from https://mac.r-project.org/bin/.  In sudo R session, run install.libs("r-base-dev").  Reinstall R using above package installer.
> 
>> capabilities()
>         jpeg         png        tiff       tcltk         X11        aqua
>         TRUE        TRUE        TRUE        TRUE        TRUE        TRUE
>     http/ftp     sockets      libxml        fifo      cledit       iconv
>         TRUE        TRUE       FALSE        TRUE        TRUE        TRUE
>          NLS       Rprof     profmem       cairo         ICU long.double
>         TRUE        TRUE        TRUE        TRUE        TRUE       FALSE
>      libcurl
>         TRUE
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 4.5.1 (2025-06-13)
> Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20
> Running under: macOS Sequoia 15.4.1
> 
> Matrix products: default
> BLAS:   /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib
> LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib;  LAPACK version 3.12.1
> 
> locale:
> [1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8
> 
> time zone: America/New_York
> tzcode source: internal
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  utils     datasets  grDevices methods   base
> 
> other attached packages:
> [1] latticeExtra_0.6-31 lattice_0.22-7      colorspace_2.1-2
> 
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] compiler_4.5.1     deldir_2.0-4       RColorBrewer_1.1-3 Rcpp_1.1.0
> [5] interp_1.1-6       jpeg_0.1-11        grid_4.5.1         png_0.1-8
>>
> 
> nareshgurbuxani$ gfortran --version
> GNU Fortran (GCC) 14.2.0
> Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
> warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
> 
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