> As Duncan noted, the message is pretty clear in that the ODBC header files
> are missing, which are required to compile RODBC from source. On RH based
> Linuxen, this requires the installation of the unixODBC-devel RPM, much as
> one would need to have other *-devel RPMs (eg. readline-devel) installed for
> compiling many applications from source.
>
Since a lot of R users may not be familiar with these header files, I
think the configure script could go a step further in explaining why
it was looking for these headers (to find an installed ODBC driver
manager), and that it didn't find one. To illustrate what I mean,
here is the result of running R CMD INSTALL on a system lacking an
installed dsm where I swapped the order of the tests in configure.ac
(see patch below) such that the library tests come before the header
tests:
> * installing *source* package 'RODBC' ...
> checking for library containing SQLTables... no
> configure: error: "no ODBC driver manager found"
> ERROR: configuration failed for package 'RODBC'
To me, that is a more helpful error message, because it makes it clear
that you need to install an ODBC driver manager.
Another example is found in the configure script for
mysql-connector-odbc. Like RODBC, it requires an installed driver
manager including header files. It can use either unixODBC or iodbc.
Here is the result of running its configure script, without arguments,
on a system without an installed driver manager:
...
checking if driver should be linked against odbcinst library... yes
checking for iodbc-config... no
checking for SQL_ATTR_UNIXODBC_VERSION in sqlext.h... not found
configure: error: no suitable driver manager selected or found
Again, I think that is a better error message, if only because it
includes the phrase "driver manager".
============== patch 1 -- swap order of tests in configure.ac ===============
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 8f9fc6a..997da8a 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -62,13 +62,6 @@ if test -n "${ODBC_CONFIG}"; then
fi
CPPFLAGS="${CPPFLAGS} ${RODBC_CPPFLAGS}"
-dnl Check the headers can be found
-AC_CHECK_HEADERS(sql.h sqlext.h)
-if test "${ac_cv_header_sql_h}" = no ||
- test "${ac_cv_header_sqlext_h}" = no; then
- AC_MSG_ERROR("ODBC headers sql.h and sqlext.h not found")
-fi
-
dnl search for a library containing an ODBC function
if test [ -n "${odbc_mgr}" ] ; then
AC_SEARCH_LIBS(SQLTables, ${odbc_mgr}, ,
@@ -78,6 +71,13 @@ else
AC_MSG_ERROR("no ODBC driver manager found"))
fi
+dnl Check the headers can be found
+AC_CHECK_HEADERS(sql.h sqlext.h)
+if test "${ac_cv_header_sql_h}" = no ||
+ test "${ac_cv_header_sqlext_h}" = no; then
+ AC_MSG_ERROR("ODBC headers sql.h and sqlext.h not found")
+fi
+
dnl for 64-bit ODBC need SQL[U]LEN, and it is unclear where they are defined.
AC_CHECK_TYPES([SQLLEN, SQLULEN], , , [# include <sql.h>])
dnl for unixODBC header
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