PLR Installation on Mac Lion

Question

I am trying to install PL/R 8.3.0.13.1 on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.7.5, Postgres 9.2 and R 2.15.2. I have found on the web a nice step-by-step guide for Windows but I can't find anything similar for Mac.
I got stuck when I run this command [as official documentation] ( http://www.joeconway.com/plr/doc/plr-install.html ):

USE_PGXS=1 make

Output:

make: pkg-config: Command not found
make: pkg-config: Command not found
make: pkg-config: Command not found
make: pkg-config: Command not found
make: pkg-config: Command not found

*** Cannot build PL/R because R_HOME cannot be found.
*** Refer to the documentation for details.

Clearly that means I need to create somehow R_HOME, variable and/or location...

Any idea how to do it?

Answer 1

You need to figure out what you should set your PLR environment R_HOME variable. In a terminal session I get this

computername:~ username$ R RHOME      #only enter stuff after"$"
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources

This is at the bottom of that page you linked to:

"Tip: R_HOME must be defined in the environment of the user under which PostgreSQL is started, before the postmaster is started. Otherwise PL/R will refuse to load. See plr_environ(), which allows examination of the environment available to the PostgreSQL postmaster process. "

This is from a webpage describing the problem and offering a fix:

To fix: Add a "R_HOME = '/usr/lib/R' " to /etc/postgresql/version/cluster/environmen

Example Fix for version 8.1:
 $ sudo -s
 # echo -e "\nR_HOME = '/usr/lib/R'" >> /etc/postgresql/8.1/main/environment
 # exit

To Test:
 $ sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 restart
 $ sudo -u postgres psql plr_test
 plr_test=# select test();
  test
 ------

Answer 2

The error message is actually a bit confusing. If you look at the Makefile of PL/R, the logic is that it uses R_HOME to find R when set, otherwise it tries pkg-config. You have neither set, so it bails out.

I recommend going the pkg-config route if possible. The R_HOME route appears to assume an R installation scheme that might not be universally applicable. Perhaps it applies to builds straight from source.

The above applies to all platforms. Now on OS X, it depends on how you installed R. For example, if you used MacPorts, it would go something like this:

sudo port install pkgconfig
sudo port install R

and then build PL/R itself:

make USE_PGXS=1

But that will break because PL/R does not expect that MacPorts separates the R headers into two separate directories (architecture-dependent and -independent I suppose).

Homebrew might work better, but the principle is the same.