gsl wants libgsl >= 1.16 but I have 2.4

[nzok]

Script started on 2021-11-23 15:26:59+1300
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install.packages("gsl")
Installing package into ‘/home/ok/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/src/contrib/gsl_2.1-7.1.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 222357 bytes (217 KB)
==================================================
downloaded 217 KB

• installing source package ‘gsl’ ...
  ** package ‘gsl’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
  checking for gsl-config... /usr/bin/gsl-config
  checking if GSL version >= 2.1... checking for gcc... gcc
  checking whether the C compiler works... yes
  checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
  checking for suffix of executables...
  checking whether we are cross compiling... no
  checking for suffix of object files... o
  checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
  checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
  checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
  configure: error: Need GSL version >= 1.16
  ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘gsl’
• removing ‘/home/ok/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/gsl’

The downloaded source packages are in
‘/tmp/RtmpRIIADX/downloaded_packages’
Warning message:
In install.packages("gsl") :
installation of package ‘gsl’ had non-zero exit status

quit()
Save workspace image? [y/n/c]: n
$ gsl-config --version
2.4
$ uname -a
Linux tarski 5.4.0-90-generic #101~18.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 22 09:25:04 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
exit
Script done on 2021-11-23 15:27:42+1300

This was the most recent version of libgsl-dev available for Ubuntu 18.04

[markgalassi]

This was the most recent version of libgsl-dev available for Ubuntu 18.04

Dear GSL users in R, I'm delighted to hear of your using gsl, and I happened across your report. I took a peak at the tarball you pointed to and found that it had some surprising code to find gsl in its configure.ac - I'm not surprised that it did not return something useful to configure. I quickly put together an autoconf+automake setup to find gsl in what might be the simplest way, using pkg-config. Here's the snippet in configure.ac which I hope can help you: AC_PATH_TOOL(PKG_CONFIG, pkg-config) AC_SUBST([GSL_CFLAGS]) AC_SUBST([GSL_LIBS]) PKG_CHECK_MODULES([GSL], [gsl >= 2.4]) CFLAGS="$GSL_CFLAGS $CFLAGS" LIBS="$GSL_LIBS $LIBS" On an ubuntu-18.04 system with libgsl-dev installed it gives this: checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes checking for gsl... yes and it links with the right libraries (pkg-config gsl --cflags does not need or set C flags). And if I remove libgsl-dev then it reports the stuff below: checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config checking for pkg-config... (cached) /usr/bin/pkg-config checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes checking for gsl... no configure: error: Package requirements (gsl >= 2.4) were not met: No package 'gsl' found Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you installed software in a non-standard prefix. Alternatively, you may set the environment variables gsl_CFLAGS and gsl_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for more details.

[sherbert]

Just ran into this and spent some time debugging. The requirement actually being checked for in configure is libgsl-dev >= 2.5:

cat confdefs.h - <<_ACEOF >conftest.$ac_ext
/* end confdefs.h.  */

#include <string.h>
#include <gsl/gsl_version.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
#ifdef GSL_VERSION
   int major, minor;
   char *gslv = GSL_VERSION;
   if ((sscanf(gslv, "%d.%d", &major, &minor)) != 2) {
     exit (1);
   }
   exit (minor < 5);
   exit (major < 2);
#else
  exit(1);
#endif
}

The error message when this check fails needs to be updated to reference the version actually being checked for rather than 1.16:

  as_fn_error $? "Need GSL version >= 1.16" "$LINENO" 5

[Japrin]

The same problem. I have to use an older version of gsl (gsl_2.1-6.tar.gz )

[mmaechler]

This was partly addressed in #17 but indeed, not fully. There, you have a hint on how to test correctly for 2.5 {but the hint is not directly usable: you need exit(.) codes, not return}.

BTW: It is configure.ac which must be changed manually, then (typically you rebuild configure from configure.ac