Inconsistent use of Perl? (PR#1937)

[berwin@maths.uwa.edu.au]

Dear all

yesterday I got around to install R-1.5.1 on my machine at home which,
admittedly, is running a very old version of RedHat Linux.  I noticed
two things:

1) My pdflatex version is too old to produce the pdf version of the
   manuals.  `./configure' checks whether a recent version of makeinfo
is installed and tells you whether you can produce the info version or
not.  (I was told I couldn't, another reason to upgrate the machine.)
But during configuration there don't seem to be any check whether the
pdflatex is recent enough.  You might want to consider to add such a
check.

2) `./configure' checks whether Perl 5.004 (or later) is installed.
   On my machine Perl 5.00405 is installed and the installation went
ahead without problems.  However, when I then tried to install
R-1.5.1-recommended by issuing the command
        R CMD INSTALL *.tar.gz
in the appropriate directory, I received complaints about my Perl
version.  Essentially, R wanted all of a sudden Perl 5.005 (or
later).  An edited version of what I saw on my terminal is included
below.  I got the same kind of error message when I used from within R
`update.packages' and `install.packages' to update/install some
packages that are not in R-1.5.1-recommended.
As far as I can tell, the installation of the packages went ahead fine
except that the `TITLE' file for each of these packages is empty.
Hence, I guess the error message is produced when R tries to generate
and install the `TITLE' file.  However, the `TITLE' files for the
packages in the base distribution are fine.  This leaves me wondering
why during the base installation Perl 5.004 (or later) is good enough
for producing the `TITLE' file but for `R CMD INSTALL' Perl 5.005 (or
later) is required.   

Cheers,

        Berwin


----- Edited output from attempt to install R-1.5.1-recommended -----
absentia:/opt/R/R-1.5.1-recommended$ R CMD INSTALL *.tar.gz
Contains: MASS class nnet spatial
* Installing *source* package 'KernSmooth' ...
** libs
[...]
gcc -shared  -o KernSmooth.so blkest.o cp.o dgedi.o dgefa.o dgesl.o linbin.o linbin2D.o locpoly.o rlbin.o sdiag.o sstdiag.o   -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/share/icon.9.3.1/ilib -L/usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/2.95.2 -L/usr/local/i686-pc-linux-gnu/lib -lreadline -ldl -lncurses -lg2c -lm 
** R
** data
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
 >>> Building/Updating help pages for package `KernSmooth'
     Formats: text html latex example 
* DONE (KernSmooth)

* Installing *source* package 'MASS' ...
** libs
gcc -I/usr/local/lib/R/include  -I/usr/local/include -D__NO_MATH_INLINES -mieee-fp  -fPIC  -g -O2 -c MASS.c -o MASS.o
gcc -shared  -o MASS.so MASS.o    
** R
** data
** inst
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
 >>> Building/Updating help pages for package `MASS'
     Formats: text html latex example 
  write.matrix                                              example
* DONE (MASS)

* Installing *source* package 'class' ...
** libs
gcc -I/usr/local/lib/R/include  -I/usr/local/include -D__NO_MATH_INLINES -mieee-fp  -fPIC  -g -O2 -c class.c -o class.o
gcc -shared  -o class.so class.o    
** R
** inst
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
 >>> Building/Updating help pages for package `class'
     Formats: text html latex example 
* DONE (class)

* Installing *source* package 'nnet' ...
** libs
gcc -I/usr/local/lib/R/include  -I/usr/local/include -D__NO_MATH_INLINES -mieee-fp  -fPIC  -g -O2 -c nnet.c -o nnet.o
gcc -shared  -o nnet.so nnet.o    
** R
** inst
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
 >>> Building/Updating help pages for package `nnet'
     Formats: text html latex example 
* DONE (nnet)

* Installing *source* package 'spatial' ...
** libs
[...]
gcc -shared  -o spatial.so init.o krc.o pps.o    
** R
** data
** inst
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
 >>> Building/Updating help pages for package `spatial'
     Formats: text html latex example 
* DONE (spatial)

* Installing *source* package 'boot' ...
** R
** data
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
[...]
* DONE (boot)

* Installing *source* package 'cluster' ...
** libs
[...]
gcc -shared  -o cluster.so clara.o daisy.o fanny.o meet.o mona.o pam.o spannel.o twins.o   -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/share/icon.9.3.1/ilib -L/usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/2.95.2 -L/usr/local/i686-pc-linux-gnu/lib -lreadline -ldl -lncurses -lg2c -lm 
** R
** data
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
[...]


* Installing *source* package 'foreign' ...
[...]
** libs
[...]
gcc -shared  -o foreign.so SASxport.o avl.o file-handle.o format.o minitab.o pfm-read.o sfm-read.o spss.o stataread.o    
** R
Perl 5.005 required--this is only version 5.00405, stopped at /usr/local/lib/R/share/perl/maketitle.pl line 4.
** help
[...]


--please do not edit the information below--

Version:
 platform = i686-pc-linux-gnu
 arch = i686
 os = linux-gnu
 system = i686, linux-gnu
 status = 
 major = 1
 minor = 5.1
 year = 2002
 month = 06
 day = 17
 language = R

Search Path:
 .GlobalEnv, package:ctest, Autoloads, package:base


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