reg-tests-1.R failure with unstable

Hi,

I am getting an error from one of the test files
tests/reg-tests-1.R using the unstable version (r50179).
(i've learned my lessons; this is a clean build.) The tail
of reg-tests-1.Rout.fail is

Loading required package: myTst
building package pkgA ...
installing package pkgA using file pkgA_1.0.tar.gz ...
Error in as.octmode(mode) : invalid digits
Error in install.packages(r, lib = "myLib", repos = NULL, type = "source") :
  (converted from warning) installation of package 'pkgA_1.0.tar.gz'
had non-zero exit status
Execution halted

The error from as.octmode() appears to be coming from R CMD
INSTALL. If I unpack pkgA_1.0.tar.gz, 'R CMD INSTALL pkgA'
from the source tree works fine. However, 'R CMD INSTALL
 pkgA_1.0.tar.gz' returns the error. I am wondering whether
this is specific to my OS (FreeBSD).  Any pointers for
debugging would be appreciated.

h.

+---
| Hiroyuki Kawakatsu
| Business School, Dublin City University
| Dublin 9, Ireland. Tel +353 (0)1 700 7496