[R] [Rd] R/Sweave/cairo/freetype bug fix.

Hin-Tak Leung htl10 at users.sourceforge.net
Mon Apr 1 11:18:45 CEST 2013


--- On Sat, 30/3/13, Hin-Tak Leung <htl10 at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> "... was committed to freetype in January and will form the
> next release (2.4.12)". 

It is perhaps worth repeating the quote:  'The official R binaries for windows ... are compiled against static libraries of cairo 1.10.2 ... are firmly in the "do not work correctly" category'

The minimum version of cairo to work being 1.11.2. On closer examination, the official bundle (http://www.rforge.net/Cairo/files/cairo-current-win.tar.gz) is built with neither fontconfig nor freetype. So even if it is bumped to current version (1.12.x), it does not work correctly.

Perhaps also wasn't clear in the bugzilla thread - everybody from fontconfig/cairo/freetype involved knew it being the issue so it has never been explicitly spelled out - the problem was (is) with cairo's pdf/ps generation, aided by freetype.

> ------------------------------
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 18:54 GMT Simon Urbanek wrote:
> 
> >On Mar 30, 2013, at 9:24 AM, Hin-Tak Leung wrote:
> >
> >> Perhaps that's too much details. There is (will be)
> a new freetype because of cairo's unanticipated usage (which
> R uses, among other cairo users). Most people should upgrade
> or request an upgrade eventually, when they are
> comfortable.
> >> 
> >
> >Which versions are affected? R binary for OS X uses
> freetype 2.4.11 (and cairo 1.12.14) so I just need to know
> if there is an action item.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >SImon
> >
> >
> >
> >> --- On Sat, 30/3/13, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> 
> >> Huh?
> >> 
> >> This is utterly incomprehensible without reading
> the redhat
> >> bugzilla, and even after reading, I'm not sure what
> the
> >> issue is. Something with bold Chinese fonts in X11,
> but
> >> maybe also affecting Latin fonts, ....?
> >> 
> >> Please explain yourself.
> >> 
> >> -pd
> >> 
> >> On Mar 30, 2013, at 09:25 , Hin-Tak Leung wrote:
> >> 
> >>> The problem was first seen with R/Sweave (#c0)
> then
> >> reproduced directly with cairo (#c10) and was
> eventually
> >> traced to freetype. The 5-part bug fix:
> >>> 610ee58e07090ead529849b2a454bb6c503b4995
> >>> da11e5e7647b668dee46fd0418ea5ecbc33ae3b2
> >>> e1a2ac1900f2f16ec48fb4840a6b7965a8373c2b
> >>> 869fb8c49ddf292d6daf4826172a308973d3e11f
> >>> d56e544d653b09c657911629557ffc5277a503e3
> >>> was committed to freetype in January and will
> form the
> >> next release (2.4.12). They were back ported to
> 2.4.11
> >>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=891457#c35
> >>> and the redhat people had further back-ported
> it to
> >> 2.4.10 for fedora 18/19 (#c51).
> >>> 
> >>> The freetype people had reproduced the problem
> with a
> >> latin font, so this affects most people, unlike
> what the
> >> initial report (#c0) suggests.
> >>> 
> >>> Since freetype is part of X11, most unix/linux
> users
> >> would be understandably nervous about breaking X
> (see #c45
> >> for screenshot of broken gnome terminal!) and
> should wait up
> >> to a year before the new and not-yet-released
> 2.4.12 becomes
> >> an official upgrade; or contact their favourite
> unix vendors
> >> and/or Apple for upgrades. AFAIK, current
> up-to-date linux
> >> distributions ships the rather older 2.4.10, with
> the
> >> exception of fedora 18/19 (#c51). Mac OS X 10.5
> ships
> >> freetype 2.3.5 as part of X11; I haven't bother
> looking up
> >> later Mac OS X's.
> >>> 
> >>> The official R binaries for windows and mac OS
> X are
> >> compiled against static libraries of cairo 1.10.2
> (over 2
> >> years old), and cairo 1.11.2 and freetype 2.4.4
> >> respectively, and are firmly in the "do not work
> correctly"
> >> category.
> >>> 
> >>> The long and short of the story is that
> R/Sweave uses a
> >> feature of cairo which wasn't implemented before
> cairo
> >> 1.11.2 (#c13, Jan 2011), which in turn depends on a
> feature
> >> of freetype that has been around since 2005 but did
> not
> >> anticipate cairo's usage. It is commendable that
> the
> >> freetype people did not refer to cairo's usage as
> "misuse"
> >> but took the patience to address the problem,
> unlike some
> >> group's style.
> >>> 
> >>> It has been an interesting few months returning
> to
> >> freetype after about 17 years, I think.
> >>> 
> >>> Here is how to look up what version of freetype
> -
> >> libfreetype.so.x.y.z for most unix platforms, and
> >> /usr/X11/lib/libfreetype.x.y.z.dylib on Mac OS X:
> >>> 
> >>> (excerpt from docs/VERSION.DLL)
> >>> 
> >>>      version   
> >> x.y.z   date of release
> >>>      2.4.11 
> >>    6.10.0  Dec 2012
> >>>      2.4.10 
> >>    6.9.0   June 2012
> >>>      2.4.9 
>    
> >> 6.8.1   March 2012
> >>> ...
> >>>      2.4.4 
>    
> >> 6.6.2   Nov 2010  (official R
> mac
> >> binaries)
> >>> ...
> >>>      2.3.5 
>    
> >> 6.3.16  July 2007 (Mac OS X 10.5)
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> ______________________________________________
> >>> R-devel at r-project.org
> >> mailing list
> >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >> 
> >> -- 
> >> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> >> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> >> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> >> Phone: (+45)38153501
> >> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk 
> >> Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel at r-project.org
> mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >> 
> >> 
> >
> 
>



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