R SIG Debian - Jun 2013 - r-cran-rjava (ubuntu 13.04 ?) -- missing dependencies?

I am really no java lover, but for some reason had interested to look
at an R package that depends on  rJava...
and when I tried, I was *again* (it is my usual experience for more
than 10 years)
unable to get rJava installed,
as indeed, also   'R CMD javareconf'  ended  in an error that  jni.h
was not found.

I see the issue here,
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16438073/unable-to-install-rjava-in-r-3-0-in-ubuntu-13-04

including the proposed solution

   sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-*

which installs 690 MB (!) of stuff (not counting the "basic openjdk-7"
installed previously)...
...
and indeed solves the problem  {i.e.  'R CMD javareconf'  then
succeeds}.

---
Summary: I think  r-cran-rjava  needs the full (or at least more than now of)
'openjdk-7-*' in its (debian) dependencies.

Martin

Martin,

On 15 June 2013 at 11:47, Martin Maechler wrote:
| I am really no java lover, but for some reason had interested to look
| at an R package that depends on  rJava...
| and when I tried, I was *again* (it is my usual experience for more
| than 10 years)
| unable to get rJava installed,
| as indeed, also   'R CMD javareconf'  ended  in an error that  jni.h
| was not found.
| 
| I see the issue here,
|
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16438073/unable-to-install-rjava-in-r-3-0-in-ubuntu-13-04
| 
| including the proposed solution
| 
|    sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-*
| 
| which installs 690 MB (!) of stuff (not counting the "basic
openjdk-7"
| installed previously)...
| ...
| and indeed solves the problem  {i.e.  'R CMD javareconf'  then
succeeds}.
| 
| ---
| Summary: I think  r-cran-rjava  needs the full (or at least more than now of)
| 'openjdk-7-*' in its (debian) dependencies.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

The _binary_ package r-cran-rjava builds with the virtual package
'default-jdk':  [ lines indented and formatted ]

  edd at max:~$ grep Build-Depends src/debian/CRAN/rJava-0.9-4/debian/control 
  Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7.0.0), r-base-dev (>= 3.0.0~20130324),
cdbs, \
  automake, default-jdk [!arm !hppa !kfreebsd-i386 !kfreebsd-amd64 !hurd-i386
!mips]
  edd at max:~$ 

So in Debian unstable, testing, ... this seems works as the package builds
and loads.  From the build log I keep:

  The following NEW packages will be installed:
    autoconf{a} automake{a} autotools-dev{a} ca-certificates{a} 
    [...]
    libxml2{a} libxrandr2{a} libxtst6{a} m4{a} man-db{a} openjdk-6-jdk{a} 
    openjdk-6-jre{a} openjdk-6-jre-headless{a} openjdk-6-jre-lib{a} 
    openssl{a} po-debconf{a} shared-mime-info{a} tzdata-java{a} 
  0 packages upgraded, 82 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I can see that on Debian openjdk-6-* works.  That makes the packaging
consistent with the distro / OS.

Why Ubuntu needs openjdk-7 I do not know. It is not entirely satisfactory but
I do not have a better answer.

Dirk

-- 
Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com