Hello again. Here is another question that I am puzzled about: I had the (incorrect) impression that if I had Rtools on a Windows machine that I could use any tar.gz package. However, that is not true. In particular, I was looking at the rPython package. I do indeed have Python on this machine. But when I did R CMD INSTALL rPython, I got an error message that said, "this is a Unix package". Interesting. Should I just stay with my Ubuntu laptop and behave? Thanks, Erin -- Erin Hodgess Associate Professor Department of Mathematical and Statistics University of Houston - Downtown mailto: erinm.hodgess at gmail.com [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
On 09/01/2015 5:32 PM, Erin Hodgess wrote:> Hello again. > > Here is another question that I am puzzled about: I had the (incorrect) > impression that if I had Rtools on a Windows machine that I could use any > tar.gz package. However, that is not true. > > In particular, I was looking at the rPython package. I do indeed have > Python on this machine. But when I did R CMD INSTALL rPython, I got an > error message that said, "this is a Unix package". Interesting. > > Should I just stay with my Ubuntu laptop and behave?No, but you should not use packages that misbehave. The ideal R package will run on all platforms where R runs. Some require effort from the user to provide prerequisites, but no good R package runs only on one platform. Duncan Murdoch
On 10/01/15 12:45, Duncan Murdoch wrote:> On 09/01/2015 5:32 PM, Erin Hodgess wrote: >> Hello again. >> >> Here is another question that I am puzzled about: I had the (incorrect) >> impression that if I had Rtools on a Windows machine that I could use any >> tar.gz package. However, that is not true. >> >> In particular, I was looking at the rPython package. I do indeed have >> Python on this machine. But when I did R CMD INSTALL rPython, I got an >> error message that said, "this is a Unix package". Interesting. >> >> Should I just stay with my Ubuntu laptop and behave? > > No, but you should not use packages that misbehave. The ideal R package > will run on all platforms where R runs. Some require effort from the > user to provide prerequisites, but no good R package runs only on one > platform.I just had a look at CRAN and there is an INSTALL file associated with rPython. This file says (at the bottom):> WINDOWS SYSTEMS > ==============> > On a Windows system, the package can be installed from https://github.com/cjgb/rPython-win. > It is the same source code and comes with specific platform instructions.Maybe you can get some mileage out of that. Good luck. cheers, Rolf -- Rolf Turner Technical Editor ANZJS Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
Mike Miller
2015-Jan-13 18:51 UTC
[R] seek(), Windows and Cygwin (was "a UNIX vs. Windows package question, please")
On Fri, 9 Jan 2015, Duncan Murdoch wrote:> On 09/01/2015 5:32 PM, Erin Hodgess wrote: >> Hello again. >> >> Here is another question that I am puzzled about: I had the >> (incorrect) impression that if I had Rtools on a Windows machine that I >> could use any tar.gz package. However, that is not true. >> >> In particular, I was looking at the rPython package. I do indeed have >> Python on this machine. But when I did R CMD INSTALL rPython, I got an >> error message that said, "this is a Unix package". Interesting. >> >> Should I just stay with my Ubuntu laptop and behave? > > No, but you should not use packages that misbehave. The ideal R package > will run on all platforms where R runs. Some require effort from the > user to provide prerequisites, but no good R package runs only on one > platform.That reminds me to ask if anyone here can provide more details about the limitations of seek(). I'm working on some functions that use seek() and I may have to tell Windows users not to use these functions.>From the manual page for seek():http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/seek.html "Use of seek on Windows is discouraged. We have found so many errors in the Windows implementation of file positioning that users are advised to use it only at their own risk, and asked not to waste the R developers' time with bug reports on Windows' deficiencies." My question is about whether this limitation is caused by the Windows filesystem, typically NTFS, or if the problem is in the Windows OS. If the problem were in the filesystem, maybe the docs would have said so because NTFS can be used on other platforms. Secondly, can this problem be addressed at all by using Cygwin? I know that Cygwin is running in Windows, so it's still Windows, but R might be compiled differently, so I just thought I'd ask! ;-) And it doesn't matter which Windows version is used? Finally, if the problem is entirely in Windows, and R cannot possibly overcome it, I suppose that means that it is impossible to write a program to run under Windows that can seek (is it fseek in C?) reliably to a position in a file. If that is the case, it's going to be hard to develop good systems for managing bioinformatic data on Windows. Thanks in advance. Mike -- Michael B. Miller, Ph.D. University of Minnesota http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EV_phq4AAAAJ