R/Sweave/cairo/freetype bug fix.

"... 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.

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)

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org
mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk 
Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org
mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

--- 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.

That is not "the official bundle" - that is merely a convenience binary for the Cairo package (not to be confused with cairo back-end in R) for users that don't have cairographics installed on their system. I don't think that CRAN uses this for R builds.
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.

But then why would even the old binary in the Cairo package be an issue? It uses Win32 API, not freetype.

Cheers,
Simon
------------------------------
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)

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org
mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk 
Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org
mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

--- 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)

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org
mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business
School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk 
Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org
mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel