Rblp
installation fails on Alpine Linux
The pre-compiled Bloomberg binaries that the package downloads during installation seem to assume a glibc-based Linux OS. On Alpine Linux, I get:
** using staged installation
Setting up compilation for a linux x86_64 system
** libs
[...]
** testing if installed package can be loaded from temporary location
Error: package or namespace load failed for 'Rblpapi' in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...):
unable to load shared object '/home/runner/R-patched/lib/00LOCK-Rblpapi/00new/Rblpapi/libs/Rblpapi.so':
Error loading shared library libresolv.so.2: No such file or directory (needed by /home/runner/R-patched/lib/00LOCK-Rblpapi/00new/Rblpapi/libs/../blp/libblpapi3_64.so)
Error: loading failed
ldd additionally shows:
Error loading shared library ld-linux-x86-64.so.2: No such file or directory (needed by blp/libblpapi3_64.so)
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: __register_atfork: symbol not found
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: __strdup: symbol not found
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: setcontext: symbol not found
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: __strftime_l: symbol not found
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: makecontext: symbol not found
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: backtrace: symbol not found
Error relocating blp/libblpapi3_64.so: getcontext: symbol not found
AFAICS, the only thing this R package could do about this is to clarify the restriction in the SystemRequirements, https://github.com/Rblp/Rblpapi/blob/ec8da696f78935dfa6864e81407c1afa0913e436/DESCRIPTION#L19-L21 and maybe also in the README#Status Section, so this becomes a known limitation. (I'll put 'Rblpapi' on my "stoplist".)
Yes there may be little else we can do here other than support a stop list. For example, we also no longer get macOS amd64 from Bloomberg.
Note though that I control at run-time from R via a function haveBlp() which follows a compile-time #define for HaveBlp. We could possibly set that to false on Alpine / with Musl. You would get a package that builds, but is an empty shell (and tells you so).
The logic is in configure (a shell script) and currently very simple (as we all tend to ignore marginal platforms beyond (real, uncrippled) Linux and macOS). We want to get into the else part starting on line 37 which relies on (constant, pre-made) src/Makevars.
So I guess we could do something like this quick awk statement:
$ docker run --rm -ti alpine:3.22 awk -F= '/^ID=/ {print $2}' /etc/os-release
alpine
$ awk -F= '/^ID=/ {print $2}' /etc/os-release
ubuntu
$
And I guess utils::osVersion has something similar if we have R (which I don't in the alpine container).
Oh nice. Even better if musl-based systems could be handled in the configure setup.
Maybe grepping in R.version$os (set from autoconf's ${host_os}) would be good enough to detect macOS ("darwin") and Alpine ("musl") builds, respectively.
R> R.version$os
[1] "linux-musl"
R> osVersion
[1] "Alpine Linux v3.22"
So maybe this might suit as alpine will fail it while other linux-gnu systems will pass?
modified configure
@@ -30,7 +30,8 @@ fi
## At CRAN or R-universe we encounter nothing else.
: ${R_HOME=$(R RHOME)}
sysname=$(${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript -e 'cat(Sys.info()["sysname"])')
-if [ ${sysname} = "Linux" ]; then
+osname=$(${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript -e 'cat(R.version$os)')
+if [ ${sysname} = "Linux" ] & [ ${osname} = "linux-gnu" ]; then
platform="linux"
elif [ ${sysname} = "Darwin" ]; then
platform="osx"
Yes, narrower is better. I also show the "${osname}" now:
modified configure
@@ -30,12 +30,13 @@ fi
## At CRAN or R-universe we encounter nothing else.
: ${R_HOME=$(R RHOME)}
sysname=$(${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript -e 'cat(Sys.info()["sysname"])')
-if [ ${sysname} = "Linux" ]; then
+osname=$(${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript -e 'cat(R.version$os)')
+if [ ${sysname} = "Linux" ] & [ ${osname} != "linux-musl" ]; then
platform="linux"
elif [ ${sysname} = "Darwin" ]; then
platform="osx"
else
- echo "Unsupported platform: $sysname"
+ echo "Unsupported platform: ${sysname} (${osname})"
echo "Check https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/support/api-library/ for possible support first."
echo "Contributions welcome, see https://github.com/Rblp/blp for integration with Rblapi."
echo "The build will proceed but not be functional for lack of a library."