R devel - Jun 2004 - Problem setting environment variable in R/zzz.R

I am trying to get the Rmetrics.org component package fBasics by Diethelm
Wuertz into a Debian package. Thanks to a lot of work by Diethelm, it is
_almost_ there. It fails 'R CMD check' for me if I do not have the TZ
environment variable set [1], yet works fine as long as I set TZ.

I figured I could patch this in R/zzz.R and do 

    ## set a timezone if none found in environment variables or options()
    if (Sys.getenv("TZ")=="") {
      if (is.null(getOption("TZ"))) {
        cat("No timezone information found, using default of GMT\n")
        Sys.putenv("TZ"=="GMT")
      } else {
        cat("No timezone information found, applying option() value
of",
            getOption("TZ"), "\n")
        Sys.putenv("TZ"==getOption("TZ"))
      }
    }

right before   library.dynam("fBasics", pkg, lib)  concludes
.First.lib().

Now, even with that little patch, the R CMD check still fails.  Which means
that the package could fail CRAN tests unless CRAN has TZ set. That is a bit
of a gamble I'd rather avoid.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks,  Dirk


[1] There is a bit of a Debian tradition to, if in doubt, cover things via
    a configuration file in /etc rather than an environment variable. I got
    rather used to that, and like living without env.vars.

-- 
"Cheney has the mouth of a sailor, which is odd for someone who did 
everything he could to stay out of the Navy," one observer said.
          -- Andy Borowitz, http://borowitzreport.com, 26 June 2004

The help page for Sys.putenv seems to indicate using a single "=" 
rather than the double "==".  Could that be your problem?

-roger

Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> I am trying to get the Rmetrics.org component package fBasics by Diethelm
> Wuertz into a Debian package. Thanks to a lot of work by Diethelm, it is
> _almost_ there. It fails 'R CMD check' for me if I do not have the
TZ
> environment variable set [1], yet works fine as long as I set TZ.
> 
> I figured I could patch this in R/zzz.R and do 
> 
>     ## set a timezone if none found in environment variables or options()
>     if (Sys.getenv("TZ")=="") {
>       if (is.null(getOption("TZ"))) {
>         cat("No timezone information found, using default of
GMT\n")
>         Sys.putenv("TZ"=="GMT")
>       } else {
>         cat("No timezone information found, applying option() value
of",
>             getOption("TZ"), "\n")
>         Sys.putenv("TZ"==getOption("TZ"))
>       }
>     }
> 
> right before   library.dynam("fBasics", pkg, lib)  concludes
.First.lib().
> 
> Now, even with that little patch, the R CMD check still fails.  Which means
> that the package could fail CRAN tests unless CRAN has TZ set. That is a
bit
> of a gamble I'd rather avoid.
> 
> What am I doing wrong here?
> 
> Thanks,  Dirk
> 
> 
> [1] There is a bit of a Debian tradition to, if in doubt, cover things via
>     a configuration file in /etc rather than an environment variable. I got
>     rather used to that, and like living without env.vars.
> 
-- 
Roger D. Peng
http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~rpeng/