[Rcpp-devel] (OS X / 64 bit woes?) R CMD check failing on skeletonc Rcpp module

[Davor Cubranic]

My experience is similar to Michael's: I'm a Linux guy who started
using a Mac at work a few years ago, but still feel far more
comfortable in the Debian/Ubuntu world. I would second his assessment
of the OS X toolchain:

1. the OS version you're using will determine your toolchain options
2. some toolchains are easier/"freer" to install than others

Things were very quite simple with Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6): XCode
(v3.x) was available on Apple's website with no registration or
charge, and it included the standard GCC toolchain, alongside with
Clang/LLVM compiler. (Clang is an independent project to implement a
brand new C++ compiler for the LLVM optimizing backend. GCC has been
around forever and while it works very well, it's also become quite
difficult to extend and debug, or at least that's the story I heard.)

Lion made a bit of a mess: XCode v4 is no longer so easy to get
because downloading it requires either a Mac App store login or a
$100/yr registration in the Apple developer program (the Safari
developer option is news to me). Furthermore, Apple decided to remove
GCC, perhaps because of issues it has with the new GPL3 license, but
it still (for now) includes pieces of it (its "gcc" and "g++" are
really GNU's compiler frontend and LLVM backend). The "real" GCC is
easy to install from several different locations, Michael gave a few
alternatives in the past.

The reason why we keep talking about GCC vs. LLVM at all is because of
compile/linking errors people occasionally run into with Rcpp and
RcppArmadillo with LLVM/clang. It isn't clear exactly which exact
compiler versions are at issue, however, because it all now works fine
for me with XCode's llvm-gcc 4.2.1 (Apple build 5658), whereas it was
failing with one from MacPorts a few months ago.

I do stand corrected on GCC from the R project: as Michael pointed
out, it's intended to be installed alongside XCode v4 and so doesn't
include the linker, for example.

FWIW, I haven't had any problems with XCode toolchain on either OS X
release, but the new barriers to getting it on Lion really put me off
and are the main reason why I'm not upgrading my machine any time
soon.

Davor


At Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:54:10 -0700 (PDT),
Michael Hannon wrote:
> As I seem to be partly responsible for this thread, I feel obliged to
> contribute a few more, unenlightening remarks before bowing out.
> 
> First, I'm definitely NOT an OS X cognoscente.  I'm a linux guy that gets
> dragged in to helping with Mac OS X issues.
> 
> I have recommended and installed Apple's Xcode, but I have reservations about
> it.  I don't seem to be able to get a consistent view of it.  Some versions
> are free but require an upgrade to the latest version of the OS.  Or the same
> version is free if you sign up (for a cost) to be a developer for iOS.  Or
> maybe the same version is completely free if you sign up -- for free -- to be
> a Safari developer.  And the compiler suite is or is not gcc, depending on
> version.  I've probably garbled some of this.
> 
> I used software from the Fink project some time ago, when I was a bit more
> involved with Mac OS, so I turned to it again to solve the problem to which I
> alluded in my original message.  It's also mildly reassuring to me that you
> can use "apt" to install, etc., software from the Fink project, although
> you're not required to do so.
> 
> I thought that the page to which Davor referred was interesting:
> 
>     http://r.research.att.com/tools/
> 
> But I didn't see any combination of {Xcode, contributed tools} on that page
> that would get a really recent version of g++, which may be a significant
> issue for some people.
> 
> -- Mike
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