R-CMD_check MacOS-latest: configure: error: gdal-config not found or not executable.

[ThomasLuypaert]

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Hi GitHub Actions community!

I'm writing to see if I can get some help with a problem I'm having when running the R-CMD-check on GitHub Actions for the MacOS-latest operating system. My checks are succeeding for all operating systems, but failing for MacOS with the following string of errors:

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✔ Packaged terra 1.7-41 (2.1s)
ℹ Building terra 1.7-41
✖ Failed to build terra 1.7-41
Error:
! error in pak subprocess
Caused by error in stop_task_build(state, worker):
! Failed to build source package 'terra'
Full installation output:

• installing source package ‘terra’ ...
  staged installation is only possible with locking
  ** using non-staged installation
  configure: CC: clang -arch x86_64
  configure: CXX: clang++ -arch x86_64 -std=gnu++17
  checking for gdal-config... no
  no
  configure: error: gdal-config not found or not executable.
  ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘terra’
• removing ‘/private/var/folders/24/8k48jl6d249_n_qfxwsl6xvm0000gn/T/Rtmp5YPGzw/pkg-lib7753796ea7b/terra’

---

Backtrace:

1. pak::lockfile_install(".github/pkg.lock")
2. pak:::remote(function(...) { …
3. err$throw(res$error)

---

Subprocess backtrace:

1. base::withCallingHandlers(cli_message = function(msg) { …
2. get("lockfile_install_internal", asNamespace("pak"))(...)
3. plan$install()
4. pkgdepends::install_package_plan(plan, lib = private$library, num_workers = nw, …
5. base::withCallingHandlers({ …
6. pkgdepends:::handle_events(state, events)
7. pkgdepends:::handle_event(state, i)
8. pkgdepends:::stop_task(state, worker)
9. pkgdepends:::stop_task_build(state, worker)
10. base::throw(new_pkg_build_error("Failed to build source package {pkg}", …
11. | base::signalCondition(cond)
12. global (function (e) …
    Execution halted
    Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

---

I understand this is an issue caused by one of my dependencies, terra, and its reliance on gdal, which seems to be missing when performing the R-CMD-check. I've read some stuff stating this has something to do with packages not being installed as binaries. However, since I am by no means an expert in R package development, I am not sure how to circumvent this issue. It is important for me that my R-CMD-check works on all operating systems, since this is one of the requirements for the repository I'm hoping to submit this to at some later point.

If anyone has some advice on what might be causing this issue, and how I may circumvent it (without having to remove my terra dependency), I would be super grateful.

All the best,
Thomas

[github-actions[bot]]

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