[Rd] Unable to build with working iconv support on Solaris9/x86

[Lucas Barbuto]

Hi all,

Have had a frustrating time trying to get R 2.5.1 running happily on  
Solaris9/x86, the problems seem to stem mainly from libiconv  
support.  After a couple of hours of experimenting, I came across the  
following combination, note that iconv (the program, but not the  
library) exists in the Solaris base system, I've manually installed  
the full GNU distribution in /usr/local/apps/libiconv-1.11 but not  
in /usr/local yet.

CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/apps/libiconv-1.11/include -I/usr/local/include"  
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/apps/libiconv-1.11/lib -R/usr/local/apps/ 
libiconv-1.11/lib -L/usr/local/lib -R/usr/local/lib" ./configure -- 
prefix=/usr/local/apps/r-2.5.1 --with-libiconv-prefix=/usr/local/apps/ 
libiconv-1.11

Note that the option --with-libiconv-prefix=/usr/local/apps/ 
libiconv-1.11 won't get me past the configure phase by itself (fails  
the iconv test), in fact as far as I can tell --with-libiconv-prefix  
has no effect at all but I've been leaving it in just in case.

Anyway, with the environment variables CFLAGS and LDFLAGS set as  
above, the process gets through configure and make successfully, but  
fails 'make check' trying to do a conversion to "latin1"

 > ## x is intended to be in latin1
 > x <- "fa\xE7ile"
 > Encoding(x)
[1] "unknown"
 > Encoding(x) <- "latin1"
 > x
[1]Error: unsupported conversion
Execution halted

ldd -s bin/exec/R confirms that R gets it's iconv from /usr/local/ 
apps/libiconv-1.11/lib/libiconv.so.2 as expected

ldd -s bin/exec/R
[snip]
    find object=libiconv.so.2; required by bin/exec/R
     search path=/usr/local/apps/libiconv-1.11/lib:/usr/local/lib:/ 
usr/local/apps/gcc-3.4.5/lib/gcc/i386-pc-solaris2.9/3.4.5  (RPATH  
from file bin/exec/R)
     trying path=/usr/local/apps/libiconv-1.11/lib/libiconv.so.2
         libiconv.so.2 =>         /usr/local/apps/libiconv-1.11/lib/ 
libiconv.so.2
[snip]

I don't know what else to try.  Anyone?

Regards,

--
Lucas Barbuto                          E: lucasjb at csse.unimelb.edu.au
System Administrator                                T: +613 8344 1270
Department of CSSE
The University of Melbourne           http://www.csse.unimelb.edu.au/