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

[Naresh Gurbuxani]

Simon,

Thanks for clarifying.  

I applaud R community for going the extra mile.  While I did not ask about libxml, both Duncan and Simon noted capabilities() output and commented on it.  

Naresh
________________________________________
From: Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek using R-project.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2025 6:27 PM
To: Naresh Gurbuxani <naresh_gurbuxani using hotmail.com>
Cc: r-sig-mac using r-project.org <r-sig-mac using r-project.org>
Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] R install on silicon Mac lacks long.double capability
 
Naresh,

Both of those can only be FALSE by definition:

1) arm64 hardware (Apple Silicon, i.e M1,2,3,4) has no support for long doubles, so you cannot enable that one.

2) libxml is always FALSE since 4.2.0 - see ?capabilities:

  libxml: is there support for integrating ‘libxml’ with the R event loop?  ‘TRUE’ as from R 3.3.0, ‘FALSE’ as from R 4.2.0.

Cheers,
Simon

PS: what you described in "My installation was in two steps” has no effect on R or its capabilities. Those steps are only required if you want to compile R yourself (or re-compile some packages).


> On 24/10/2025, at 10:35 AM, Naresh Gurbuxani <naresh_gurbuxani using hotmail.com> 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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