R for Windows ============= This distribution contains the sources to build a port of R to run on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP on Intel/clone chips. See the file `README.rw1xxx' for fuller details, including how to install the binary versions. Building From Source on Windows =============================== [Some further details, including how to debug, are given in the rw-FAQ.] First collect the tools that you need. There is a `portal' with current links at http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/. Collect the tools ----------------- You will need suitable versions of at least make, sh, cat, cp, cut, diff, echo, egrep, expr, grep, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, sed, touch; we use those from the cygwin distribution (http://www.cygwin.com/mirrors.html) or (gzip, makeinfo, texindex) compiled from the sources. We have packaged a set at http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/tools.zip. BEWARE: `Native' ports of make are _not_ suitable (including that at the mingw site). There were also problems with several earlier versions of the cygwin tools and dll. To avoid frustration, please use our tool set, and make sure it is at the front of your path. To compile this version you need a recent version of the Mingw port of gcc from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/. There will be a distribution called something like MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe (which is built from gcc-3.2.3). Earlier versions may work, but mingw-runtime >= 3.0 and w32api >= 2.0 are essential. The released versions of gcc-3.3.1 have also been tested, but the February 2004 release candidates of gcc-3.3.3 did not work. The Windows port of perl5, available via http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/. BEWARE: you do need the *Windows* port and not the Cygwin one. zip and unzip from the Info-ZIP project (http://www.info-zip.org and mirrors, and included in our tools.zip). The TclTk support files are in http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/R_Tcl.zip: unzip it at the top level of the R sources: it will add directories $RHOME/Tcl, $RHOME/Tcl/bin, etc. If you want to make compiled html (.chm) files you will need the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop, currently available for download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/hwmicrosofthtmlhelpdownloads.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/xp/appndx/appa06.htm You may need this on the same drive as the other tools. (Although we have successfully used it elsewhere, others have reported problems). All of these need to be installed and in your path, and the appropriate environment variables set. You also need `.' in your path. Do not use filepaths with spaces in: you can always use the short forms (found by dir /x at the Windows command line). Check your path --------------- You need the following in your path (with the first two first): . our toolset mingw\bin Perl\bin the latex bin directory zip.exe, unzip.exe, hhc.exe Do not use spaces nor unnecessary quotes in your PATH variable. Make sure all of the above are before the Windows system directories (especially that containing FIND.EXE). Do not have our toolset and any other version of cygwin1.dll in your path. Building -------- You also need the R source (R-1.x.y.tgz). Then: untar R-1.x.y.tgz somewhere (with no spaces in the path names), cd /somewhere tar zxvf /path/to/R-1.x.y.tgz cd /somewhere/R-1.x.y/src/gnuwin32 BEWARE: do untar the sources rather than use broken tools such as WinZip that don't understand about symbolic links. IMPORTANT: edit MkRules to set the appropriate paths as needed and to set the type(s) of help that you want built. BEWARE: MkRules contains tabs and some editors (e.g. WinEdt) silently remove them. Then run make Note 1: The file bin/Rchtml.dll is only built if CHM help is specified in MkRules. Its source is the help directory, and you need the HTML Help Workshop files to build it. You can just copy this from a binary distribution. Note 2: we have had reports that earlier versions of Norton Anti-Virus lock up the machine when windres is run, so you may need to disable it. (Norton Anti-Virus 2002 causes no problems.) Note 3: By default Doug Lea's malloc in the file src/gnuwin32/malloc.c is used for R's internal memory allocations. You can opt out of this by commenting the line LEA_MALLOC=YES in MkRules, in which case the malloc in msvcrt.dll is used. This does work but imposes a considerable performance penalty. Note 4: You can run a parallel make by e.g. make -j2 but this is only likely to be worthwhile on a dual-processor (or perhaps a hyperthreaded P4) machine with ample (at least 384Mb) of memory. On a dual AthlonXP it reduced the build time by about 30% whereas on a single P4HT it reduced it by 10%. You can test a build by (optionally) building the recommended packages (see below) and running `make check'. You may need to set TMPDIR to (the absolute path to) a suitable temporary directory: the default is c:/TEMP. (Use forward slashes and do not use a path including spaces.) Using ATLAS ----------- You can make use of ATLAS (http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/) fast BLAS libraries by defining USE_ATLAS=YES in MkRules and specifying the path to the libraries in macro ATLAS_PATH. You will need to build the libraries optimized for your architecture under the Cygwin compilers. For convenience make Rblas-clean Rblas will re-make the Rblas.dll and so allows experimentation with different BLAS configurations. Prebuilt Rblas.dll for various Pentium and AthlonXP chips are available in the windows/contrib/ATLAS area on CRAN. Using K. Goto's BLAS -------------------- Another tuned BLAS which is available for some CPUs is by Kazushige Goto. He does not allow redistribution: they are currently available via http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kgoto/signup_first.html. To make use of this, put the DLL somewhere in your path or in R_HOME/bin, and edit MkRules to define USE_GOTO=YES and the name of the DLL (something like libgoto_p4_512-r0.9.dll). Goto's BLAS takes preference over ATLAS, and seems a little faster. However, as it is compiled for MSVC, we have been unable to make it work for complex arithmetic and so it is only used in for real linear algebra. Mr Goto supplies DLLs for PIII, P4 and Opteron processors: that for PIIIs runs on AthlonXP as well. Building bitmap device support ------------------------------ The file bin/Rbitmap.dll is not built automatically: instructions on how to build it are in the file bitmap/INSTALL. If everything is set up in directory bitmap, make bitmapdll will work from this directory. Recommended packages ==================== The recommended packages can be built by make recommended and checked by make check-recommended If you are using a cvs/rsync version of the R sources, you need to put the .tar.gz files for the recommended packages in ../library/Recommended, and copy foo_*.tar.gz to foo.tgz. If you have rsync installed, make rsync-recommended does this from the CRAN master. Building the Manuals ==================== To make the PDF versions of the manuals you will need pdftex installed and configured to work with a large file: see doc/manual/README. You also need texindex (included in our tool set). Then the pdf manuals can be made by make docs If you want to make the info versions (not the Reference Manual), use cd ../../doc/manual make -f Makefile.win info To make DVI versions of the manuals use cd ../../doc/manual make -f Makefile.win dvi (assuming you have tex and latex installed and in your path). To make HTML versions of the manuals (not the Reference Manual) use cd ../../doc/manual make -f Makefile.win html The fptex distribution of TeX (via www.fptex.org) includes a suitable port of pdftex. Building the installers ======================= See installer/INSTALL. You need to have the files for a complete R build, including bitmap and Tcl/Tk support and the manuals, as well as the recommended packages. Once everything is set up make distribution make check-all will make all the pieces and the installers and put them in the gnuwin32/cran subdirectory, then check the build. This works by building all the parts in the sequence: Rpwd.exe (a utility needed in the build) rbuild (the executables, the FAQ docs etc.) rpackage (the base packages) rdocs (the HTML documentation) bitmapdll (the bitmap support files) recommended (the recommended packages) docs (the manuals) rinstaller (the install program) crandir (the CRAN distribution directory) The parts can be made individually if a full build is not needed, but earlier parts must be built before later ones. (The Makefile doesn't enforce this dependency---some build targets force a lot of computation even if all files are up to date.) The first four targets are the default build if just "make" is run. Cross-building on ix86 Linux ============================ You will need i386-mingw32 cross-compilers installed and in your path. There is currently a complete set of tools at http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/Rtools/mingw-cross2.tar.bz2 (Just unpack this somewhere and put its bin directory in your path.) You will need Perl, zip and unzip installed and makeinfo >= 4.2 (part of GNU texinfo). You also need the R source (R-1.x.y.tgz). Then: untar R-1.x.y.tgz somewhere, and cd /somewhere/R-1.x.y/src/gnuwin32 Edit MkRules to set BUILD=CROSS and the appropriate paths (including HEADER) as needed. Edit MkRules to set the type(s) of help that you want built. (You will not be able to cross-build .chm files, so WINHELP is automatically set to NO.) You also need a working copy of this version of R on Linux: set R_EXE in MkRules to point to it. Packages can be made in the same way as natively: see the file readme.packages. (It is possible to cross-build the main installers using WINE, which we leave as an exercise for the reader.) Feedback ======== Please send comments and bug reports to R-windows@r-project.org