Install Rcartogram: error on R CMD INSTALL

Question

I am trying to use the Rcartogram package. After following the instructions in the answer by Geoff, I received an error that I can't resolve:

C:\R\R-3.2.3\library\Rcartogram>R CMD INSTALL --debug .
processing '.'
a directory
* installing to library 'C:/R/R-3.2.3/library'
* build_help_types=
* DBG: 'R CMD INSTALL' now doing do_install()
* created lock directory 'C:/R/R-3.2.3/library/00LOCK-Rcartogram'
ERROR: cannot install to srcdir for package 'Rcartogram'
* removing C:/R/R-3.2.3/library/Rcartogram

I have tried running R CMD INSTALL in other directories, as well as changing the flags as suggested in the linked answer. They either return the same error, or an error that there is no packages specified. What can I do to debug this error?

sessionInfo()

R version 3.2.3 (2015-12-10)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows >= 8 x64 (build 9200)

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_Australia.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_Australia.1252   
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_Australia.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C                      
[5] LC_TIME=English_Australia.1252    

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_3.2.3

Sandler

Hi Hugh, it's a few months since last I looked into the details of getting Rcartogram working on Windows, and I've forgotten a lot of the details :-( – Iso

Hi Hugh, it's a few months since last I looked at getting Rcartogram working on Windows, and I've forgotten a lot of the details :-( But before I moved on to other things I did create a fork of Rcartogram at github.com/Geoff99/Rcartogram The main features of the fork were some altered (substantially) Makevars.win files intended to make compilation on windows easier, and a big chunk of documentation about what the new Makevars files did, and how to use them. You may get some help from there. A totally different approach using Winbuilder is also described in the doco. – Iso

PS If you could add your session info, that might help decipher what R CMD is complaining is about. – Iso

Thank you! I've added sessionInfo hope it helps – Sandler

Mmmm, nothing jumps out at me from the sessionInfo. Have you tried using the --preclean flag? From very faded memory I used to hit problems after I'd been trying and failing to compile Rcartogram, and cleaning out all the intermediate files and starting again from scratch seemed to help. Confess I'm just guessing though. – Iso

Hi, yes tried that originally. It returns the same error, but less verbosely. – Sandler

I'm guessing I do not just run devtools::install_github('Geoff99/Rcartogram') in R to use your forked package. What else should I try first? – Sandler

I don't think I am going to be able to help you quickly :-(( (I've archived too much personal memory since I last looked at this). Have you tried the install.packages approach from inside R. Alternatively try the forked version of Rcartogram mentioned above, and follow the instructions (included in the README.WindowsInstall.Tutorial.Rmd file of the forked version) for using the Winbuilder service. I'll try and refresh my memory of how it all works over the next few days, but I can't promise anything. Maybe someone else can help ... – Iso

Don't be sad! Thanks for your help. It's clearly very difficult – Sandler

Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Iso