[Rd] Matrix does not build with R trunk since Oct.

[Simon Urbanek]

On Feb 15, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Hin-Tak Leung wrote:

> --- On Fri, 15/2/13, Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek at r-project.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 15, 2013, at 9:11 AM, Hin-Tak
>> Leung wrote:
>> 
>>> Somebody else had written separately about this before,
>> and so have I a couple of months ago. I assumed this will be
>> fixed before the next R. Since R 3.0 is supposedly only 6
>> weeks away, even if it is fixed now it doesn't leave much
>> room for testing. 
>>> 
>>> Anyway neither Matrix 1.0-11 (current) nor 1.0-9 (sept
>> 2012) build with current R trunk.  The  last time
>> it did was 1. 0-9 on 3rd october over 4 months ago. So it
>> appears to be due to change inside r trunk in sept or early
>> oct. 
>>> 
>> 
>> No problem here - Matrix 1.0-11 and R-devel build just fine
>> with your flags (tested on Ubuntu 12.10, x86_64).
>> 
>> If in doubt, please remove R-devel and checkout a fresh
>> copy. Also FWIW it's a bad practice to build inside the
>> sources - it often causes all sorts of problems when you try
>> to track the sources and stale files are probably what's
>> hitting you.
>> 
>> FWIW: This is likely not the problem you're mentioning, but
>> some recent gcc versions break and LTO is also known to
>> cause issues depending on the compiler version, so tread
>> lightly on the cutting edge.
> 
> 
> Here is a fairly similar post:
> http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Build-from-Source-fails-on-Loading-required-package-Matrix-td4640371.html
> 
> The eventual "solution" of that thread seems to be building from tar ball, which is quite beside the whole point of building from svn trunk.
> 

And how is that relevant to what I said? Did you follow the advice I sent? If you did and still have an issue, post *exact* details on what you did, what system and tools you are using. 


> FWIW, it is very unproductive to talk about "bad practice" - in a hand-waving undocumented/unsubstantiated manner

Building in sources has two problems: a) the content of the source tree can change so subsequent builds can be different from the clean one - you cannot undo that and b) if you update the sources stale files from previous builds can break the build. 

If solving your problems is "unproductive" then I'm not surprised you have them for 4 moths now.


> - and options that might or might not work. If "--enable-lto" (or any other options, or build within the dev directory) does not work reliably, it should be either disabled/removed, or documented, or both.

R cannot test all aspects of a compiler and detect all its bugs. It is *your* responsibility to provide a working compiler - if you are unwilling to do that, R cannot do anything about that.


> Anyway, it has not been working for over 4 months.
> 

That is not true, obviously, and I have presented a counter-example. It may not have been working for *you* and it's likely a problem in your setup (given your lack of cooperation there is no way to tell for sure). We cannot prevent user errors. We can try to point people in the right direction, but if they refuse to listen it's on their head.


> You have about 6 weeks before this becomes a big problem - "big" as in "wide-spread".
> 

You are yet to show that this is a problem in R at all. You failed to follow the basic instructions in the FAQ.

Cheers,
Simon



>> Cheers,
>> Simon
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> ----------------
>>> Loading required package: Matrix
>>> Error in namespaceExport(ns, exports) : undefined
>> exports: .M.classEnv
>>> Error : require(Matrix) is not TRUE
>>> ERROR: installing package indices failed
>>> * removing ‘/svn-loc/R/library/Matrix’
>>> * restoring previous ‘/svn-loc/R/library/Matrix’
>>> make[2]: *** [Matrix.ts] Error 1
>>> make[2]: Leaving directory
>> `/svn-loc/R/src/library/Recommended'
>>> make[1]: *** [recommended-packages] Error 2
>>> make[1]: Leaving directory
>> `/svn-loc/R/src/library/Recommended'
>>> make: *** [stamp-recommended] Error 2
>>> ----------------
>>> 
>>> If it matters, here is what r trunk built with:
>>> ./configure --enable-memory-profiling
>> --enable-strict-barrier --enable-byte-compiled-packages
>> --with-valgrind-instrumentation=2 --enable-lto
>>> 
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-devel at r-project.org
>> mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>> 
>> 
> 
>