[R] problem installing packages from source on win2k

[Liaw, Andy]

> From: Simon Cawley [mailto:simon_cawley at affymetrix.com] 
> 
> Dear R-helpers,
> 
> I'm having trouble compiling R packages from source on Win2K. 
>  I installed R 1.7.1beta [1] on my win2k machine [2], 
> downloaded the fields package as source [3] and tried but 
> failed to install the package [4].  I get the same problem 
> with other packages, so it doesn't appear to be limited to 
> fields.  Installation of precompiled packages seems to work 
> fine.  I've been doing this on linux for a long time and 
> never ran into such an issue.
 
[snip]

> [4] within cygwin bash shell, I ran the following:
>   Rcmd install fields_1.3-1.tar.gz
> which dies with the error
> .
> hhc: not found
> cp: cannot stat `c:/tmp/R.INSTALL/fields/chm/fields.chm': No 
> such file or directory
> make[1]: *** [chm-fields] Error 1
> make: *** [pkg-fields] Error 2
> *** Installation of fields failed ***

A couple of things:

1.  I believe the build need to be done from a command prompt (a.k.a.
"MSDOS"), rather than the cygwin bash.  The potential problem (at least the
one I know about) is that the cygwin bash by default prepends it's own PATH
to the system PATH, so it will find the cygwin compilers first before the
minGW.

2.  The error message is quite clear: it can't find hhc.exe.  That's the
Compiled HTML help compiler (for CHM help pages).  Either install it and put
it in the path, or find the Makefile/MkRules and tell it not to make CHM.

HTH,
Andy

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