libstableR doesn't build for macOS - r

Question

I would like to use the R package libstableR on a mac. I'm not a contributor/author of the package and have contacted them regarding libstableR failing for osx:
After contacting the authors who said the problem is probably related to R not knowing where GSL is on the computer, I applied two minor edits to
the DESCRIPTION and the src/Makevars in addition to requiring the mac user to do the following:
be sure to have homebrew
be sure to have gsl
be sure to have Rcpp and RcppGSL: just install.packages("RcppGSL") in R
Sources:
Dirk Eddelbuettel answer on SO
GREGGJ website on homebrew installing GSL on macs
Applying the steps above has changed the output of
devtools::install_github("swihart/libstableR")
From:
<SNIP>
** testing if installed package can be loaded
Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘libstableR’ in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...):
unable to load shared object '/Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so':
dlopen(/Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so, 6): Symbol not found: _stable_set_THREADS
Referenced from: /Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so
Expected in: flat namespace
in /Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so
Error: loading failed
Execution halted
ERROR: loading failed
* removing ‘/Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR’
to:
** testing if installed package can be loaded
Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘libstableR’ in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...):
unable to load shared object '/Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so':
dlopen(/Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so, 6): Symbol not found: _libstableR_stable_cdf
Referenced from: /Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so
Expected in: flat namespace
in /Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR/libs/libstableR.so
Error: loading failed
Execution halted
ERROR: loading failed
* removing ‘/Users/swihartbj/RLIB/libstableR’
Where basically instead of complaining about _stable_set_THREADS the errors pertain to _libstableR_stable_cdf. libstableR_stable_cdf is an exported function. The leading underscore in _libstableR_stable_cdf is put there when Roxygen/Rcpp is applied.
I have tinkered and online searched for about two months trying to get this up and running, and now come to SO for help.
Anyway to get libstableR working on a mac?

Answer 1

So, I went to https://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/libstableR/index.html and grabbed https://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/libstableR_1.0.tar.gz (I knew Bruce had a repo but I wanted to see the original).
I had gsl (homebrew) and the RcppGSL installed already.
I did a quick devtools::document() since I figured it used Rcpp everywhere and got:
Error in dyn.load(dllfile) :
unable to load shared object '/private/tmp/libstableR/src/libstableR.so':
dlopen(/private/tmp/libstableR/src/libstableR.so, 6): Symbol not found: _libstableR_stable_cdf
Referenced from: /private/tmp/libstableR/src/libstableR.so
Expected in: flat namespace
in /private/tmp/libstableR/src/libstableR.so
There were two definitions (one Rcpp exposed and one internal) for stable_cdf() so I made the internal one int_stable_cdf() and made the change to the singular call to it.
I still got a similar error so I suspected they hand-crafted some things.
I went in and made the NAMESPACE auto-generate from roxygen comments and added //' #exports for the key exposed functions.
I removed init.c since Rcpp auto-gen's registration code now.
I still got an error, but this time for stable_set_THREADS being unavailable.
It turns out they really don't care abt macOS folks at all:
#ifdef __WIN32
void stable_set_THREADS(unsigned int value) {
/*
SYSTEM_INFO sysinfo;
GetSystemInfo(&sysinfo);
THREADS = (unsigned int)sysinfo.dwNumberOfProcessors;
*/
THREADS = 12;
}
#else
#ifdef __unix
void stable_set_THREADS(unsigned int value) {
if (value == 0) THREADS = sysconf(_SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN);
else THREADS = value;
//printf("\nCPUs = %u\n",THREADS);
}
#endif
#endif
I removed the unix ifdef, tweaked a few more incidentals and it works.
I'll see if we can get this on GH and get the maintainers to OK some further tweaks to make it easier for others to contribute.