[Rd] v3.4.0-2 incompatible with gcc 7.1

[Chris Cole]

I'm on Arch Linux kernel version 4.11.6-1 using gcc version 7.1.1:

gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 7.1.1 20170516

I have installed R through the arch package manager pacman and when I
attempt to initiate it, R crashes stating a missing dependency:

/usr/lib64/R/bin/exec/R: error while loading shared libraries:
libgfortran.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I thought that maybe a symlink was improperly placed in the package so I
looked in /usr/lib to try to find the offending library.

ls -halt /usr/lib/libgfortran.so.*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 May 16 03:01 /usr/lib/libgfortran.so.4 ->
libgfortran.so.4.0.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7.1M May 16 03:01 /usr/lib/libgfortran.so.4.0.0

Simply symlinking libgfortran.so.4.0.0 to libgfortran.so.3 did not work,
and after some questioning on SO (
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44658867/r-v3-4-0-2-unable-to-find-libgfortran-so-3-on-arch)
it seems that gfortran 7 has bumped the .so object to version 4.

It seems that a relatively straightforward workaround for the present would
be to install a legacy version of gcc alongside the current version.

I'm wondering if Rcore or Rdevel are moving towards being able to handle
the new compiler version any time soon, and if there are any other
workarounds than having two versions of the compiler.

Thanks.

Chris

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