R devel - May 2009 - Problem building (binary) packages for Windows

Hi,

I am having a problem building binary packages for
Windows recently.

Normally, I use the "Murdoch-Sutherland" tool set,
       http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/
just build source packages by
       R CMD build <pkgname>
and install these with
       R CMD INSTALL <pkgname>

But now, for someone without having this tool set installed,
under Win XP, with R-2.10dev (details below), I tried
building a binary version with
       R CMD build --binary <pkgname>
which used to work for me until recently (unfortunately I
cannot specify "recently" here...)

Trying to install the created .zip file with
       utils:::menuInstallLocal()

I get an error message
"
package 'distr' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
Error in unpackPkg(pkgs[i], pkgnames[i], lib) :
  malformed bundle DESCRIPTION file, no Contains field
"

Now AFAICS I have not tried to build a bundle ...

Searching the help archives, I found a posting by Uwe Ligges,
       http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.r.general/64574/
saying that
       R CMD INSTALL --build
was preferable to
       R CMD build --binary
--- in which respect? Would this avoid the error message?

So far I have not come across this error message, and
packages I built with
       R CMD build --binary
installed correctly with
       utils:::menuInstallLocal()

Actually, the corresponding zip-file containes
a second DESCRIPTION file in the top folder, like a
bundle, which I think is the culpit, and after
deleting this installation worked out fine.

Could you please check what caused this second
DESCRIPTION file to be generated?

Any suggestions welcome,

Best, Peter

--------------------------------------------------
platform       i386-pc-mingw32

arch           i386

os             mingw32

system         i386, mingw32

status         Under development (unstable)

major          2

minor          10.0

year           2009

month          04

day            26

svn rev        48404

language       R

version.string R version 2.10.0 Under development (unstable) (2009-04-26
r48404)

On 5/15/2009 8:10 AM, Peter Ruckdeschel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am having a problem building binary packages for
> Windows recently.
> 
> Normally, I use the "Murdoch-Sutherland" tool set,
>        http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/
> just build source packages by
>        R CMD build <pkgname>
> and install these with
>        R CMD INSTALL <pkgname>
> 
> But now, for someone without having this tool set installed,
> under Win XP, with R-2.10dev (details below), I tried
> building a binary version with
>        R CMD build --binary <pkgname>
> which used to work for me until recently (unfortunately I
> cannot specify "recently" here...)
> 
> Trying to install the created .zip file with
>        utils:::menuInstallLocal()
> 
> I get an error message
> "
> package 'distr' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
> Error in unpackPkg(pkgs[i], pkgnames[i], lib) :
>   malformed bundle DESCRIPTION file, no Contains field
> "
> 
> Now AFAICS I have not tried to build a bundle ...
> 
> Searching the help archives, I found a posting by Uwe Ligges,
>        http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.r.general/64574/
> saying that
>        R CMD INSTALL --build
> was preferable to
>        R CMD build --binary
> --- in which respect? Would this avoid the error message?
The main benefit is that links between help pages will be more likely to 
be set correctly.
> 
> So far I have not come across this error message, and
> packages I built with
>        R CMD build --binary
> installed correctly with
>        utils:::menuInstallLocal()
> 
> Actually, the corresponding zip-file containes
> a second DESCRIPTION file in the top folder, like a
> bundle, which I think is the culpit, and after
> deleting this installation worked out fine.
> 
> Could you please check what caused this second
> DESCRIPTION file to be generated?
You can't have two files with the same name in the same folder in 
Windows.  However, Windows Explorer by default hides file extensions, so 
it may look as though you do.  Was the file you deleted called 
DESCRIPTION.in?

I use Rcmd INSTALL --build most of the time and have never seen your 
error.  I just tried Rcmd build --binary and the file installed okay. 
Can you give a recipe to reproduce the error?

Duncan Murdoch
> 
> Any suggestions welcome,
> 
> Best, Peter
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> platform       i386-pc-mingw32
> 
> arch           i386
> 
> os             mingw32
> 
> system         i386, mingw32
> 
> status         Under development (unstable)
> 
> major          2
> 
> minor          10.0
> 
> year           2009
> 
> month          04
> 
> day            26
> 
> svn rev        48404
> 
> language       R
> 
> version.string R version 2.10.0 Under development (unstable) (2009-04-26
> r48404)
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

That version of R-devel is not current, so please update it.  I think 
it might have been in an interval where we tried out verious fixes for 
building bundles and some of them broke other things.

In general if you use R-devel or R-patched you need to update before 
reporting any difficulties.  'Under development' needs to be taken 
seriously.

On Fri, 15 May 2009, Peter Ruckdeschel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am having a problem building binary packages for
> Windows recently.
>
> Normally, I use the "Murdoch-Sutherland" tool set,
>       http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/
> just build source packages by
>       R CMD build <pkgname>
> and install these with
>       R CMD INSTALL <pkgname>
>
> But now, for someone without having this tool set installed,
> under Win XP, with R-2.10dev (details below), I tried
> building a binary version with
>       R CMD build --binary <pkgname>
> which used to work for me until recently (unfortunately I
> cannot specify "recently" here...)
>
> Trying to install the created .zip file with
>       utils:::menuInstallLocal()
>
> I get an error message
> "
> package 'distr' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
> Error in unpackPkg(pkgs[i], pkgnames[i], lib) :
>  malformed bundle DESCRIPTION file, no Contains field
> "
>
> Now AFAICS I have not tried to build a bundle ...
>
> Searching the help archives, I found a posting by Uwe Ligges,
>       http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.r.general/64574/
> saying that
>       R CMD INSTALL --build
> was preferable to
>       R CMD build --binary
> --- in which respect? Would this avoid the error message?
That's rather old as well: now the second calls the first on Windows. 
What may matter is whether you specify -l on R CMD INSTALL --build (R 
CMD build --binary does), as installing into the main library does a 
better job of resolving HTML cross links.

So the advice is to use R CMD INSTALL --build *and* install into the 
main library (or the library where you install all your add-on 
packages).
> So far I have not come across this error message, and
> packages I built with
>       R CMD build --binary
> installed correctly with
>       utils:::menuInstallLocal()
>
> Actually, the corresponding zip-file containes
> a second DESCRIPTION file in the top folder, like a
> bundle, which I think is the culpit, and after
> deleting this installation worked out fine.
>
> Could you please check what caused this second
> DESCRIPTION file to be generated?
>
> Any suggestions welcome,
>
> Best, Peter
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> platform       i386-pc-mingw32
>
> arch           i386
>
> os             mingw32
>
> system         i386, mingw32
>
> status         Under development (unstable)
>
> major          2
>
> minor          10.0
>
> year           2009
>
> month          04
>
> day            26
>
> svn rev        48404
>
> language       R
>
> version.string R version 2.10.0 Under development (unstable) (2009-04-26
> r48404)
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595