I've tried to build R 2.6.1 and 2.7.0 on Solaris 10 update 4 (SPARC) and
both configure ok, so you might ask why I suspect there is a problem.
I tried to build the maths program Sage
http://www.sagemath.org/
version 3.0.3alpha1. Sage fails when building R 2.6.1 - (Sage includes R
in the package). The relavant bit of Sage, which is only using an
unmodified R configure script is:
checking iconv.h usability... yes
checking iconv.h presence... yes
checking for iconv.h... yes
checking for iconv... in libiconv
checking whether iconv accepts "UTF-8", "latin1" and "UCS-*"... no
checking for iconvlist... yes
configure: error: --with-iconv=yes (default) and a suitable iconv is
not available
Looking at the Sage problem in detail, I believe I know the reason and
are somewhat surprised R builds at all on Solaris. I think this problem
is an R problem, not a Sage problem.
For some reason the R "configure" script was not happy with my readline,
but after trying to configure with the configure option
--with-readline=no
The R 2.6.1 source configured ok. I did not bother running 'make' but
there were
no failures when the configure script was run. I then repeated this
with the latest version of R (2.7.0) and got similar results.
Looking at the file configure.ac in R (both 2.6.1 and 2.7.0), I see:
## iconv headers and function.
if test "${use_iconv}" = yes; then
R_ICONV
if test "$r_cv_iconv_latin1" != yes; then
AC_MSG_ERROR([--with-iconv=yes (default) and a suitable iconv is
not available])
fi
else
AC_MSG_WARN([--with-iconv=no is deprecated and will be withdrawn
shortly])
fi
Clearly the value of r_cv_iconv_latin1 determines if this test passes
or fails and so whether the error message that I get is printed or not.
The variable r_cv_iconv_latin1 is never set directly in configure, but
by in a Macro called AC_CACHE_CHECK in the file m4/R.m4.
Looking in that macro r4/R.m4 we see:
AC_CACHE_CHECK([whether iconv accepts "UTF-8", "latin1" and "UCS-
*"],
[r_cv_iconv_latin1],
So it would appear to me that AC_CACHE_CHECK needs to be run in order
that r_cv_iconv_latin will be set properly. But looking at
configure.ac, I think AC_CACHE_CHECK is only called on Linux, and not
on Solaris. Obviously this could explain why this bit of Sage works on
Linux, but not Solaris.
## check for visible __libc_stack_end on Linux
case "${host_os}" in
linux*)
AC_CACHE_CHECK([for visible __lib_stack_end],
[r_cv_libc_stack_end],
[AC_RUN_IFELSE([AC_LANG_SOURCE([[
#include "confdefs.h"
#include <stdlib.h>
extern void * __libc_stack_end;
So it seems to me this will never work, as the the relevant macro is
not run on Solaris. It begs the obvious question why does this work
when I download the source of R. I can't see the answer to that one,
but there are reports of R failing to build on Solaris, but for me at
least, it configures ok.
