Re: problems with packages on two separate Macs

[Lukas Reichlin]

On 22.01.2012, at 16:59, AdHoff wrote:

> Hi everyone, first off, let me just say that I've never taken a computer
> programming class or anything similar so I may not be too knowledgeable
> about some of the technical details of what I describe.
> 
> I have two Macs, one running 10.5.8 (Leopard) and the other running 10.6.8.
> (Snow Leopard). I was successfully able to install - on both - Octave
> (3.4.0) and QtOctave. Both run fine. I am having some difficulty installing
> some of my desired packages, however. I have tried 7 or 8 packages (that
> appear to have no dependencies) and only 1 will install on either Mac:
> geometry-1.2.2. All the others give me a similar error message. Here is an
> example:
> 
> 
> octave-3.4.0:3> pkg install struct-1.0.9.tar
> sh: make: command not found
> 'make' returned the following error: 
> error: called from `pkg>configure_make' in file
> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/3.4.0/m/pkg/pkg.m
> near line 1337, column 9
> error: called from:
> error:  
> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/3.4.0/m/pkg/pkg.m
> at line 783, column 5
> error:  
> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/3.4.0/m/pkg/pkg.m
> at line 354, column 9
> 
> At first I wondered whether it was because the package was not .tar.gz (the
> file name automatically switched when my download completed). I used gzip to
> turn the file back into a .gz format...but that didn't help. Although I
> found it odd that geometry installed and loaded correctly.
> 
> This is the same error that i have been getting on other packages, as well
> (miscellaneous, control, etc.).
> 
> I'm not familiar with Unix or shells and so maybe this is something obvious
> but it's been a problem on both of my Macs. I'd love to be able to ditch the
> cost of Matlab so I'd appreciate any suggestions! Thanks.
> 
> - Adam

Thou shalt not mess around with packages ;-) Try to install it directly from 
the server by the following command:

pkg install -forge struct

Do you have XCode installed?

Lukas