Rcmd check fails on Windows Samba network path in R 2.9.1

Did you try starting up R-2.8.1 and checking the result of 
file.access(lib, 2) on that very same directory where R-2.9.1 gives an 
incorrect indication?  If that gives the correct answer, then, look 
for changes in the file.access code.

-- Tony Plate

Kevin R. Coombes wrote:

Hi,

The problem almost certainly has something to do with Samba.  We also 
have a NetApp file system, and copying the package source to that 
drive and running Rcmd check from Windows works just fine.

When running the commands from an interactive R session, file_test 
returns TRUE and file.access to test write permission indicates a 
failure, even though that information is incorrect.Here is a session 
transcript:

-----------------------------------------

getwd()

[1] "n:/krc/Umpire/R-Package"

lib <- "Umpire.Rcheck"
file_test("-d", lib)

[1] TRUE

file.access(lib, 2)

Umpire.Rcheck
          -1

dir.create(paste(lib, "testdir", sep='/'))
dir(lib)

[1] "00check.log"   "00install.out" "testdir"     > sessionInfo()
R version 2.9.1 (2009-06-26)
i386-pc-mingw32

locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United 
States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United 
States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
----------------------------------------
Again, this all worked (and still works) correctly in 2.8.1.

   Kevin

Tony Plate wrote:

This error message looks like it comes from 
src/library/tools/R/install.R, which contains the following test:

   if (!.file_test("-d", lib) || file.access(lib, 2L))
       stop("ERROR: no permission to install to directory ",
            sQuote(lib), call. = FALSE)

The function .file_test() is defined earlier in the same file (it 
looks at file.info(lib)$isdir) and appears to be intended to be the 
same as utils:::file_test().

You could start trying to figure out what the problem is by trying 
these calls on the directory in question from an interactive R session.
(They seem to work as intended on my Windows system with a NetApp 
file system mounted on a letter drive.)

-- Tony Plate

Kevin R. Coombes wrote:

Hi,

I have just updated R from version 2.8.1 to version 2.9.1.  I am 
running Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3.

With the update, I decided to update a set of packages that I 
maintain by compiling them for the new version.  Everything worked 
fine except for one package.  This package is unique (among the six 
I was working on) in that is stored on a UNIX-based file server 
that is exported to the Windows network via Samba.  The root of 
that network path is mapped to drive "N:" on the local machine.

'Rcmd check' fails for this package under 2.9.1.  The error message 
in '00install.out'  is:
"Error: ERROR: no permission to install to directory 
'N:/krc/Umpire/R-Package/Umpire.Rcheck'"

'Rcmd check' works for this package under 2.8.1.

'Rcmd check' works for this package if the directory is copied onto 
a local hard drive instead of the network drive.

'Rcmd build' and 'Rcmd build --binary' work under both versions.

It would be nice if someone could figure out what has changed and 
fix it....

Best,
   Kevin Coombes