RCMD check error windows

Dear Lister,

I am working with Windows XP and R 2.1.0 and can check and build 
home-made packages easily (just *.r, *.rmd, *.rda files, no compiled 
code). However for some reasons, I cannot check or build the package 
'foreign' from the source (I took it as an exercise...). After some 
lines of sentences OK (here omitted and replaced by ...),  I get a 
message like this:

RCMD check foreign
...
installing R.css in 'C:/R/rw2010/src/library/foreign.Rcheck'
-------Making package foreign-------------------
adding build stamp to DESCRIPTION
intalling NAMESPACE file and metadata
making dll
make[4]: ***[libR.a] Error 255
make[3]: ***[libR.] Error 2
make[2]: ***[srcDynlib] Error 2
make[1]: ***[all] Error 2
make: ***[pkg-foreign] Error 2
*** Installation of foreign failed ***

Removing 'C:/R/rw2010/src/library/foreign.Rcheck/foreign'
ERROR
Installation failed

I can hardly find out what it means... I suspect it may come from a path 
not well defined or some batch file lacking, but I can hardly guess 
exactly which ones... The documentation 'writing R extension' pages 8-9 
(high suspicion that if I could understand it fully, I could solve the 
problem) is still obscure to me on this subject.

Can anybody put me on the right track?

Patrick

Is this a full installation of R (I guess you have not compiled it 
yourself)? If yes, does gcc, perl and friends work?
In the first place, libR.a must be compiled at this point which should 
happen automatically.
But it is really hard to say which of the tools fails exactly.

Uwe Ligges

Dear Uwe,

Is this a full installation of R (I guess you have not compiled it 
yourself)? If yes, does gcc, perl and friends work?
In the first place, libR.a must be compiled at this point which should 
happen automatically.
But it is really hard to say which of the tools fails exactly.

Uwe Ligges

I have just intalled R 2.1.0 pre-compiled from CRAN and I can confirm 
this is a full installation. R works wonderfully well (as usual). Perl 
at least work since I have built 'simple' packages since long through 
it, without any problem. John Fox's scripts helped a lot at the 
beginning and now I write the code RCMD... directly. However, I don't 
now about gcc and I don't remember to have installed something like this 
and even how it should be done...   Is there a place where I could  find 
and check step-by-step the sequence of what must be done for get and 
appropriate environment installation under Windows XP?

Ah! See R-2.1.0's version of the manual "R Installation and 
Administration", Sections "Installing R under Windows" and in 
particular Appendix E "The Windows toolset".

Uwe Ligges

Patrick Giraudoux wrote:

Dear Uwe,

Is this a full installation of R (I guess you have not compiled it 
yourself)? If yes, does gcc, perl and friends work?
In the first place, libR.a must be compiled at this point which 
should happen automatically.
But it is really hard to say which of the tools fails exactly.

Uwe Ligges

I have just intalled R 2.1.0 pre-compiled from CRAN and I can confirm 
this is a full installation. R works wonderfully well (as usual). 
Perl at least work since I have built 'simple' packages since long 
through it, without any problem. John Fox's scripts helped a lot at 
the beginning and now I write the code RCMD... directly. However, I 
don't now about gcc and I don't remember to have installed something 
like this and even how it should be done...   Is there a place where 
I could  find and check step-by-step the sequence of what must be 
done for get and appropriate environment installation under Windows XP?

Ah! See R-2.1.0's version of the manual "R Installation and 
Administration", Sections "Installing R under Windows" and in 
particular Appendix E "The Windows toolset".

Uwe Ligges