new bugs and new bundles Re: R/Sweave/cairo/freetype bug fix.

Freetype 2.4.12 was released in early May. Just so that we are clear that this is a freetype bug which affects R's use of Cairo (among other things). So there are updated bundles, and also bundles for Mac OS X as well, for both a patched 2.4.11 and 2.4.12 proper. The accompanying *.txt has a listing of versions.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/outmodedbonsai/files/R/

Unix users should just upgrade. I'll get round to build R 2.15.3 (or 2.15.x) for windows and Mac OS X at some stage, but if somebody want to beat me to it, please feel free to do so.

--- On Tue, 2/4/13, Hin-Tak Leung <htl10 at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

--- On Mon, 1/4/13, Hin-Tak Leung
<htl10 at users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:

--- On Sat, 30/3/13, Hin-Tak Leung
<htl10 at users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:

"... was committed to freetype in January and will

form

the

next release (2.4.12)".

It is perhaps worth repeating the quote:  'The

official

R binaries for windows ... are compiled against static
libraries of cairo 1.10.2 ... are firmly in the "do not

work

correctly" category'

The minimum version of cairo to work being 1.11.2. On

closer

examination, the official bundle (http://www.rforge.net/Cairo/files/cairo-current-win.tar.gz)
is built with neither fontconfig nor freetype. So even

if it

is bumped to current version (1.12.x), it does not

work

correctly.

Here is a drop-in replacement for the above:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/outmodedbonsai/files/R/cairo-1.12.14%2Bft%2Bfc-win.tar.gz

Besides being over 2 years more up-to-date, cairo (1.12.14)
is also built with fontconfig and freetype enabled, and
freetype being 2.4.11 + back-ported patch (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=891457#c35)
so at least there is a a better chance of R working
correctly.

The full list of the tar ball is (a superset of the above,
due to addition of fontconfig and freetype and their
dependencies):
-------
cairo-1.12.14
pixman-0.26.2
libpng-1.5.13
zlib-1.2.7
fontconfig-2.10.1
freetype-2.4.11 (patched)
glib2-2.34.3
expat-2.1.0
bzip2-1.0.6
libffi-3.0.11
gettext-0.18.2
---------
This allows the C-based cairo bug demo (#c10) to build so I
am sure it is sufficient for building windows R. At some
stage I'll rebuild a less-buggy R 2.15.3 for windows, but
not for a few weeks so if somebody wants to beat me to it,
please feel free to do so.

Perhaps also wasn't clear in the bugzilla thread -

everybody

from fontconfig/cairo/freetype involved knew it being

the

issue so it has never been explicitly spelled out -

the

problem was (is) with cairo's pdf/ps generation, aided

by

freetype.

------------------------------
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 18:54 GMT Simon Urbanek

wrote:

On Mar 30, 2013, at 9:24 AM, Hin-Tak Leung

wrote:

Perhaps that's too much details. There

is

(will be)

a new freetype because of cairo's unanticipated

usage

(which

R uses, among other cairo users). Most people

should

upgrade

or request an upgrade eventually, when they are
comfortable.

Which versions are affected? R binary for OS

X

uses

freetype 2.4.11 (and cairo 1.12.14) so I just need

to

know

if there is an action item.

Thanks,
SImon

--- On Sat, 30/3/13, peter dalgaard

<pdalgd at gmail.com>

wrote:

Huh?

This is utterly incomprehensible without

reading

the redhat

bugzilla, and even after reading, I'm not

sure

what

the

issue is. Something with bold Chinese

fonts in

X11,

but

maybe also affecting Latin fonts, ....?

Please explain yourself.

-pd

On Mar 30, 2013, at 09:25 , Hin-Tak

Leung

wrote:

The problem was first seen with

R/Sweave

(#c0)

then

reproduced directly with cairo (#c10) and

was

eventually

traced to freetype. The 5-part bug fix:

610ee58e07090ead529849b2a454bb6c503b4995

da11e5e7647b668dee46fd0418ea5ecbc33ae3b2

e1a2ac1900f2f16ec48fb4840a6b7965a8373c2b

869fb8c49ddf292d6daf4826172a308973d3e11f

d56e544d653b09c657911629557ffc5277a503e3

was committed to freetype in January

and

will

form the

next release (2.4.12). They were back

ported

to

2.4.11

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=891457#c35
and the redhat people had further

back-ported

it to

2.4.10 for fedora 18/19 (#c51).

The freetype people had reproduced

the

problem

with a

latin font, so this affects most people,

unlike

what the

initial report (#c0) suggests.

Since freetype is part of X11, most

unix/linux

users

would be understandably nervous about

breaking

X

(see #c45

for screenshot of broken gnome terminal!)

and

should wait up

to a year before the new and

not-yet-released

2.4.12 becomes

an official upgrade; or contact their

favourite

unix vendors

and/or Apple for upgrades. AFAIK,

current

up-to-date linux

distributions ships the rather older

2.4.10,

with

the

exception of fedora 18/19 (#c51). Mac OS

X

10.5

ships

freetype 2.3.5 as part of X11; I haven't

bother

looking up

later Mac OS X's.

The official R binaries for windows

and

mac OS

X are

compiled against static libraries of

cairo

1.10.2

(over 2

years old), and cairo 1.11.2 and

freetype

2.4.4

respectively, and are firmly in the "do

not

work

correctly"

category.

The long and short of the story is

that

R/Sweave uses a

feature of cairo which wasn't

implemented

before

cairo

1.11.2 (#c13, Jan 2011), which in turn

depends

on a

feature

of freetype that has been around since

2005

but did

not

anticipate cairo's usage. It is

commendable

that

the

freetype people did not refer to cairo's

usage

as

"misuse"

but took the patience to address the

problem,

unlike some

group's style.

It has been an interesting few

months

returning

to

freetype after about 17 years, I think.

Here is how to look up what version

of

freetype

-

libfreetype.so.x.y.z for most unix

platforms,

and

/usr/X11/lib/libfreetype.x.y.z.dylib on

Mac OS

X:

(excerpt from docs/VERSION.DLL)

       version

x.y.z   date of release

       2.4.11

     6.10.0  Dec 2012

       2.4.10

     6.9.0   June 2012

       2.4.9

6.8.1   March 2012

...
       2.4.4

6.6.2   Nov 2010  (official R

mac

binaries)

...
       2.3.5

6.3.16  July 2007 (Mac OS X 10.5)

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