The R Project SVN R

R @RVER@ for Windows
====================

This distribution contains the sources to build a port of R-@RVER@ to
run on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4 and 2000 on Intel/clone chips. See the
file `readme' 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.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/Rtools/.


Collect the tools
-----------------

You will need suitable versions of at least make, sh, cat, cp, cut,
diff, echo, egrep, expr, g(awk), grep, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, sed, touch;
we use those from the cygwin distribution
(http:/www.cygwin.com/mirrors.html) or (gzip, tar, makeinfo, texindex)
compiled from the sources.  We have packaged a set at
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/Rtools/tools.zip.

BEWARE: `Native' ports of make are _not_ suitable (including that at
the mingw32 site).  There are also problems with several earlier
versions of the cygwin tools and dll.  To avoid frustration, please
use our tool set.


We recommend that you use the mingw32 port of gcc-2.95.2 by Mumit Khan
from http://www.mingw.org/ or
ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32. (The `portal'
gives more precise instructions.)  You can build R against either the
crtdll.dll or msvcrt.dll runtime systems, and as from 1.2.0 we
recommend the latter.  (In particular, locale support is poor with
crtdll.dll, non-existent under Win9x.)

It may also be possible to use the compilers from the cygwin 1.1 net
release with the -mno-cygwin flag.  (You will need the cygwin, gcc,
mingw32, w32api and binutils bundles.  You will need to ensure that
you have just one version of cygwin1.dll in your path, and there is
one in our tools distribution.)  You can no longer use earlier
versions (e.g. b20) of cygwin.  (It is not possible to compile R to
use msvcrt.dll with the cygwin suite.)


perl5, available via http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/

zip and unzip from the Info-ZIP project (http://www.info-zip.org and
mirrors, and included in our tools.zip).

If you want to make compiled html (.chm) files you will need the
Microsoft HTML Help Workshop, available for download at 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/tools/htmlhelp/wkshp/download.htm


If you want to make Window help files you will need hcrtf.exe from a
Windows compiler installation (this has been available for download at
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/hcwsetup.exe).

All of these need to be installed and in your path, and the
appropriate environment variables set.


Building
--------

You also need: the R source (R-@RVER@.tgz), and to build the
installer, unzip541.zip from any Info-ZIP mirror.

Then: untar R-@RVER@.tgz somewhere (with no spaces in the path names),

    cd /somewhere/R-@RVER@/src/gnuwin32

IMPORTANT: edit MkRules to set the appropriate paths as needed.  If
you have Mingw32/cross-compiler and gcc-2.95.2.1 or later you can set
HAVE_SHARED=YES which will speed up the process considerably.

Edit Makefile to set the type(s) of help that you want built.

and run

    make BUILD=MINGW32 or CYGWIN


Note 1: the file @RWVER@\unzip\unzip32.dll is not in the source
distribution. It can be found in file unz541dN.zip at any Info-ZIP
mirror, or you can copy it from a binary distribution.

The file @RWVER@\bin\Rchtml.dll is only built if CHM help is specified
in the main Makefile. Its source is the help directory, and you need
the HTML Help Workshop files to build it. It contains instructions
to build it under VC++6, and it is preferable to use that as the 
VC++ library will check versions of the components needed. You can just
copy this from a binary distribution.

Note 2: building libR.a is highly disk intensive and can take several
minutes even on a local disc. We have seen times from 30 secs to 20
minutes. Using a network file system is likely to take longer.  It is
done in memory and is *much* faster with gcc-2.95.2.1 or later on
mingw32.

Note 3: we have had a report that a version of Norton Anti-Virus
locks up the machine when windres is run.

Note 4: By default Doug Lea's malloc in the file src/gnuwin32/malloc.c is
used.  You can opt out of this by commenting the line LEA_MALLOC=YES
in the Makefile, in which case the Windows malloc is used.  The one
in crtdll.dll is unlikely to be satisfactory, but the one in msvcrt.dll
does work but imposes a considerable performance penalty.

You can test a build by `make check': expect some differences in the
tests of the print routines.  You may need to set TMPDIR to a suitable
temporary directory: the default is c:\TEMP.


Building bitmap device support
------------------------------

The file @RWVER@\bin\Rbitmap.dll is not built automatically:
instructions on how to build it are in the file bitmap\INSTALL.  You
can just copy this from a binary distribution.


Building Tcl/Tk support
-----------------------

The TclTk support package is not built automatically.  To use this you
need to install tcl832.exe (or tcl831.exe if you already have it) from
dev.scriptics.com, and set TCL_HOME in MkRules to where you installed
it (perhaps c:/Program Files/Tcl).  Then

    make tcl

will make the library.


Cross-building on ix86 Linux
============================

You will need i386-mingw32 cross-compilers installed and in your path,
preferably ones targetted at msvcrt.dll.  There is currently a
complete set of tools at

    http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/Rtools/i386-msvc-cross.tar.bz2

(Just unpack this somewhere and put its bin directory in your path.)

Instructions for building a cross-compiler are given at

    http://www.nanotech.wisc.edu/~khan/software/gnu-win32/mingw-cross-howto.txt

At the time of writing these were rather outdated.  There is another set
at

    http://www.devolution.com/%7Eslouken/SDL/Xmingw32/

which is targetted at msvcrt.dll.  (There is also a cross-compiler
there, but omitting g77 which you will need.)

Apart from the compiler, you need the mingw32 runtime system and a
cross-built version of binutils 2.9.4.

You will need Perl, zip and unzip installed.

You also need: the R source (R-@RVER@.tgz), and to build the installer,
unzip541.zip from any Info-ZIP mirror.

Then: untar R-@RVER@.tgz somewhere, and

    cd /somewhere/R-@RVER@/src/gnuwin32

Edit MkRules to set BUILD=CROSS and the appropriate paths (including
HEADER) as needed.  With our set of cross-compilers you can uncomment
HAVE_SHARED.

Edit Makefile to set the type(s) of help that you want built. (You
will not be able to cross-build .chm or .hlp files, nor Rchtml.dll,
so set WINHELP to NO.)

Packages can be made in the same way as natively: see the file
readme.packages.  You will need to set STAMP=NO, e.g.

    make STAMP=NO pkg-foo


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), you
will need a version of makeinfo 4.0 (included in our tool set). Then

    cd ../../doc/manuals
    make -f Makefile.win info

will make the info files.

To make DVI versions of the manuals use

    cd ../../doc/manuals
    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/manuals
    make -f Makefile.win html

This make use of tidy.exe, from http://www.w3c.org/.

The fptex distribution of TeX (via www.fptex.org) includes a suitable
port of pdftex.



Feedback
========

Please send comments and bug reports to (preferably both of)

    Guido Masarotto <guido@hal.stat.unipd.it>
    Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk>