R devel - Dec 2025 - help with revdepcheck

Dear fellow developers.

I am trying to submit the latest version of psych and need to check the 294
reverse dependencies.  Normally,  I just run revdep_check() to do this.

But today I am being told I do not have the necessary tools to compile C


Here is  the error message:

fn <- "/Users/WR/Dropbox/Software/psych/"
> revdep_check(fn,num_workers=8)
?? CHECK
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 294
packages ??
[0/294] 00:00:05 | ETA:  ?s | (8) agriutilities [I], AID [I], ANOPA [I], apa7
[I], aplms [...Error: Could not find tools necessary to compile a package
Call `pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE)` to diagnose the
problem.
> pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE)
Trying to compile a simple C file
Error: Could not find tools necessary to compile a package
Call `pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE)` to diagnose the problem.
rror: Could not find tools necessary to compile a package

R version 4.5.2 (2025-10-31)
Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20
Running under: macOS Sequoia 15.7.3


Any help to fix this would be appreciated.

I am trying to meet the Dec 22 deadline for submission to CRAN.

Bill



William Revelle            personality-project.org/revelle.html
Board of Visitors Professor (Emeritus)
Department of Psychology         www.wcas.northwestern.edu/psych/
Northwestern University            www.northwestern.edu/
Use R for psychology                 personality-project.org/r
It is 89 seconds to midnight    www.thebulletin.org



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Dear Prof. Revelle,

? Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:29:15 +0000
William R Revelle <revelle at northwestern.edu> ?????:
> I am trying to submit the latest version of psych and need to check
> the 294 reverse dependencies.  Normally,  I just run revdep_check()
> to do this.
> 
> But today I am being told I do not have the necessary tools to
> compile C
Indeed, it seems that out of the strong recursive reverse dependencies
of the 'psych' package, 27 need compilation:

tools::package_dependencies(
 'psych', reverse=TRUE, which = 'strong', recursive=TRUE
) -> revd
tools::CRAN_package_db() -> db
db |> subset(Package %in% revd$psych) |> with(
 Package[NeedsCompilation == 'yes']
) |> length()
# [1] 27

In order to run R CMD check for them, you'll need a working compiler.
Have you got Xcode installed? Is it possible for you to install Xcode
14.3? If you don't get a better answer here and there's no answer at
<https://mac.r-project.org/>, try asking at R-SIG-Mac at r-project.org.

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan