Symlinks when building R on windows

I think this is more suited for the devel mailing list than the help one.

I'm trying to build R on windows, With Rtools installed, and configure/make
in R-3.0.2 sources folder from a cygwin console.

I am stuck at the moment, because the build process tries create symlinks,
and gcc build fails because the opened files containe the metadata of the
not working symlink, and not the linked file.
The first problematic files is src/extra/xz/alone_decoder.c, pointing to
common/alone_decoder.c, but i guess the following buildt files would have
the same problem.
My configure didn't even detect the symlink cmd off cygwin while performing
the tests, and i even launched configure with --disable-symlinks, but their
creationis attmpted anyways.
Is there any quick way to workaround that? And since it's .c or.h files we
are symlinking here, couldn't we simply do 'eponym' C or h files that do a
C #include to the relative path, which would be more portable than symlinks?

Ok, i used the procedure in the manual. I think i am almost at the end of
the build process. I am stuck however at the build of grDevices module.
While byte-compiling it, i get the following error :
Error in solve.default(rgb) : 'a' must be a complex matrix
The line of that syntax errror can be found back in make.rgb of
src/library/grDevices/R/convertColor.R
I doubt this file has a syntax error. The only possible cause i can think
of is if the previous rbind that creates rgb returns NULL, but i can't find
what would cause that.
Any hints on where i could look for the problem?

I hope this is not too offtopic with the initial subject and the
developmenet mailing list


2013/12/18 Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>

On 13-12-18 5:24 AM, Olivier BARTHELEMY wrote:

I think this is more suited for the devel mailing list than the help one.

I'm trying to build R on windows, With Rtools installed, and
configure/make
in R-3.0.2 sources folder from a cygwin console.

This doesn't sound like a good idea.  The Rtools are set up for native
Windows builds.  If you run configure yourself, you'll be targeting a
Cygwin build -- but that's something we don't support.

What you should do is follow the instructions for native Windows builds
that are given in chapter 3 of the Installation and Administration manual.
  In particular, *do not* run configure.

If you do choose to create a Cygwin build, please make sure it passes the
tests before you use it.  I haven't seen one that does.

Duncan Murdoch



  I am stuck at the moment, because the build process tries create symlinks,

and gcc build fails because the opened files containe the metadata of the
not working symlink, and not the linked file.
The first problematic files is src/extra/xz/alone_decoder.c, pointing to
common/alone_decoder.c, but i guess the following buildt files would have
the same problem.
My configure didn't even detect the symlink cmd off cygwin while
performing
the tests, and i even launched configure with --disable-symlinks, but
their
creationis attmpted anyways.
Is there any quick way to workaround that? And since it's .c or.h files we
are symlinking here, couldn't we simply do 'eponym' C or h files that do a
C #include to the relative path, which would be more portable than
symlinks?