install error on Ubuntu 22.04.4 using GitHub Actions for R CMD check

[isaactpetersen]

I'm using GitHub Actions to check my package for CRAN via R CMD check. However, the R CMD check fails on Ubuntu due to inability to install textshaping. R CMD check succeeds on Windows or Mac. The operating system version for Ubuntu is 22.04.4. Here is the error:

-------------------------- [ERROR MESSAGE] ---------------------------
<stdin>:1:10: fatal error: hb-ft.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘textshaping’
* removing ‘/tmp/Rtmp3Zqy7b/RLIBS_4b7336119045/textshaping’
Warning in install.packages(package_name, ...) :
  installation of package ‘textshaping’ had non-zero exit status

This error seems similar to ones in prior reported issues:

• textshaping install error on linux RHEL 7.4 - hb-ft.h: No such file or directory #21
• error in install.packages('textshaping')：fatal error: hb-ft.h: No such file or directory #31

Here is my workflow file: https://github.com/DevPsyLab/petersenlab/blob/main/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml

Here is a link to a failed job: https://github.com/DevPsyLab/petersenlab/actions/runs/8869922824/job/24351131206

I'm attaching the log output in the following text file: 00check.log

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If I need to run addition Linux code in the workflow file, it'd be helpful to know what to add and where. Thanks in advance!

[MislavSag]

Same for me

[Robinlovelace]

Same here

[Robinlovelace]

Also fails to install previous versions, upstream changes in Ubuntu to blame?

remotes::install_version("textshaping", "0.3.5")

[Robinlovelace]

Solution:

sudo apt install libharfbuzz-dev libfribidi-dev

Would save people time if that were documented in the README and error messages on fail.

[thomasp85]

These are not new requirements nor has anything changed in textshaping to cause these to suddenly not install so I suspect it must be something upstream that I have no control over. FWIW, all these system dependencies are clearly stated in the DESCRIPTION file and lack of any of them will cause an install error message indicating the issue so I don't think textshaping should do more

[Robinlovelace]

Fair, I did notice a message saying to install these later. This issue can probably be closed.

[bernhardkaindl]

@isaactpetersen, @thomasp85, @Robinlovelace,

Normally, build configurations are written in a way that turns a failure to find a requirement into a fatal error at the time of configuration before the actual compilation of the project occurs.

That is the case for example with GNU autotools and CMake (there you add the flag REQUIRED) when you look for required dependencies. That results in an obvious explanatory fatal error on behalf of the build tool before compilation starts.

An automated check for spack/spack#47008 ran into a similar issue with the same error message:

We prepared harfbuzz and fribidi in this build, but it appears that in addition, textshaping also depends on pkgconfig to find those libraries, at least in our case. Adding pkgconfig to the required tools to be installed for the build of textshaping fixed the build issue.

Thankfully, due to finding this report, the submitter of the PR during which this error was triggered was able to point me here and that made me guess that missing pkgconfig might be the trigger in the case of this specific case.

However, it would be more favorable, if textshaping could terminate compilation early during the build/configuration phase when the detection fails and also stop with a fatal error if pkgconfig is not found.