On Feb 03, 2014; 7:24am, hadley wickham wrote: > Or you're not running a postgres db on your local machine with that > accepts a connection with username Administrator and no password? I > doubt that's the error you would see if RPostgreSQL hadn't found > libpq.
I have learned enough since this posting to be aware that my question was based on assumptions so false to fact that they verge on the nonsensical, but not enough to reframe it more sensibly. So I am just going to say what I believed then and what I believe now, and perhaps you can head off the more extreme excursions from reality in my current beliefs. Because I knew that libpq depended on the version of PostgreSQL that was installed, and that it used to be the case that you could not just install the package, but it is now possible because of the addition of libpq, I concluded that libpq contained an installer for PostgreSQL. I now think that this is false, and that libpq is some sort of tailored interface that varies with the OS and the PostgreSQL version. Tailored where and by what, I still don't know, but maybe I do not need to know. Since I thought I had to use the version of PostgreSQL installed by libpq, I did not try to independently install PostgreSQL. Now I think that PostgreSQL has to be installed and working before you start to install RPostgreSQL, in order, among other things, to get the right libpq contents or settings. I spent most of a day trying to figure out how to do what I was thinking of as a "strictly local installation" of PostgreSQL, meaning one that did not connect to the internet via a port and TCP/IP. I now believe that there is no such thing, at least on a Windows machine, or that doing so would be complex and difficult, compared to a connection via a "machine-internal" TCP/IP connection -- something I did not know existed until the day before yesterday. For the last few days I have been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to install PostgreSQL from the (misnamed) "one click" installer from enterprisedb.com. I have figured out that the installation and error logs are written to stderr, and where my OS puts it. I've gone through the 40+ pages of log. Although the log contains more than 2 dozen warnings and errors, I now believe that all of the ones that matter derive in some way from this one: "Executing batch file 'rad3BBD8.bat'... 'icacls' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." . . . and that this means I am having some sort of problem with the Windows XP/NT access control/permissions system. Unfortunately I know nothing whatsoever about the Windows permission system. Learning about it is the next thing on my list. I am really quite good at framing feasible research agendas to address important policy questions on a shoestring. I'm good with regression, with displaying complicated argument in sensible graphics. I am new to using databases on my own behalf (rather than having someone to do it for me), but I am finding the query side of databases elegant and intuitive. But I am not a competent IT/sysadmin/tech support person, and I am not going to be one soon, or maybe ever. So I find it somewhat disheartening that I am spending so much time being just that. Still, I am very grateful for the help and support of this list and the various Stack Exchange lists, which have made possible such learning as I have been able to accomplish. Like the glaciers, my progress is slow but inexorable. Or so I like to believe. Warmest regards, andrewH -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Problem-connecting-to-database-via-RPostgreSQL-RS-DBI-could-not-connect-error-tp4684534p4684775.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.