#8274: R's spkg-install needs a good overhall.
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Reporter: drkirkby | Owner: amhou
Type: defect | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: sage-4.3.3
Component: statistics | Keywords:
Author: | Upstream: N/A
Reviewer: | Merged:
Work_issues: |
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The spkg-install file for R would appear to need a bit of an overhaul, and
some thought given to what is actually needed. This is hardly surprising,
given the version r-2.6.1 of R reached patch level p22 in Sage!
R was updated by Karl-Dieter Crisman recently, but obviously not checked
on Solaris, as R fails to build on Solaris due to a lack of iconv support.
But there appear to be several issues, which perhaps need addressing.
* The R installation manual
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.pdf documents that fact that
there are problems on Linux with early versions of gcc4, but R has been
extensively tested with gcc 4.1
* The configure option --with-iconv=no is used on OS X and Solaris, yet
that option is no longer documented. In contrast, the manual says iconv is
needed. On Solaris, one gets the message:
{{{
configure: error: a suitable iconv is essential
}}}
This specific issue is #8272, though an iconv package has been built, and
at the time of writing needs testing (#8191)
* There is a comment the option '--with-libiconv-prefix' is not working
on FreeBSD. In fact, this option is not documented at all in the latest R
manual, so perhaps that is why it does not work.
* The check for X support relies on the file /usr/include/X11/Xwindows.h
That file does not exist on Solaris, yet it supports X. Perhaps a better
test is needed.
* There is this patch patches/R.sh.in, which does not appear to me do
very much at, as the only significant difference between the version in
the patches directory and the version in Sage is commented out.
{{{
# HACK for Sage to avoid hardcoding. NOthing
# else has been changed in this file.
#R_HOME_DIR="${SAGE_LOCAL}/lib/R/"
#SAGEHACK#
}}}
The only other change this patch appears to make is probably undesirable,
as it overwrites a line of code related to documentation. However, I might
be wrong on this, as another patch appears to be related to this.
* #7865 documents an error on !OpenSolaris - I've not verified if this is
an issue with the latest R.
* SAGE64 is not used on any platform other than OX X, so prevents a
64-bit build on !OpenSolaris, Solaris, or any other platform which
supports the building of 64-bit code by addition of the -m64 option.
* From a quick read of the R manual, it would appear better performance
is possible if certainly libraries exist. It would seem sensible that
notices are issues that better performance can be obtained, and how one
might go about that.
Overall, with a previous version having reached patch level 22, I suspect
this package needs a bit of a cleanup followed by proper testing on
multiple platforms.
--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/8274>
Sage <http://www.sagemath.org>
Sage: Creating a Viable Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica,
and MATLAB
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