package `fst' is not available (for R version 3.3.3)

[wdkrnls]

Hi, thanks for developing this awesome package!

I just tried to install fst onto an older server running CentOS6 and R 3.3.3. It told me that fst wasn't available. From CRAN I see that it claims that fst is supported through R >= 3.0.0. I tried to install from source on the CRAN web page and got a few errors:

g++ -std=c++0x -I/share/apps/R/R-3.3.3-mdc6popencpu01-openblas/lib64/R/include -                     DNDEBUG -I. -Ifstcore -Ifstcore_v1 -Ifstcore/LZ4 -Ifstcore/ZSTD -Ifstcore/ZSTD/c                     ommon -Ifstcore/ZSTD/decompress -Ifstcore/ZSTD/compress -I/usr/local/include -I"                     /home/frdtidy/R/lib/3.3/Rcpp/include"  -fopenmp -fpic  -g -O2 -c RcppExports.cpp                      -o RcppExports.o
g++ -std=c++0x -I/share/apps/R/R-3.3.3-mdc6popencpu01-openblas/lib64/R/include -                     DNDEBUG -I. -Ifstcore -Ifstcore_v1 -Ifstcore/LZ4 -Ifstcore/ZSTD -Ifstcore/ZSTD/c                     ommon -Ifstcore/ZSTD/decompress -Ifstcore/ZSTD/compress -I/usr/local/include -I"                     /home/wdkrnls/R/lib/3.3/Rcpp/include"  -fopenmp -fpic  -g -O2 -c flex_store.cpp                      -o flex_store.o
In file included from ./fst_column.h:29,
                 from flex_store.cpp:41:
./fst_blockrunner_char.h:110: error: ISO C++ forbids initialization of member ‘s                     tring_encoding’
./fst_blockrunner_char.h:110: error: making ‘string_encoding’ static
./fst_blockrunner_char.h:110: error: ISO C++ forbids in-class initialization of                      non-const static member ‘string_encoding’
In file included from flex_store.cpp:41:
./fst_column.h:35: error: ISO C++ forbids initialization of member ‘strEncoding’
./fst_column.h:35: error: making ‘strEncoding’ static
./fst_column.h:35: error: ISO C++ forbids in-class initialization of non-const s                     tatic member ‘strEncoding’
make: *** [flex_store.o] Error 1

[MarcusKlik]

Hi @wdkrnls, thanks for reporting!

Perhaps your issue is related to #167, where compilation of fst's C++ code fails because of the relatively old default compiler on CentOS6. Which gcc compiler version is installed on your system (gcc --version)?

[wdkrnls]

Har Marcus,

You are definitely right: my compiler is ancient.

gcc (GCC) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-17)

[MarcusKlik]

Hi @wdkrnls, thanks for checking that!

Indeed, it appears that non-static data member initializers were introduced with this gcc proposal, which was implemented in gcc version 4.7 (see this list). And yes, the proposal is from 2008 :-)

Are you able to update gcc to see if that fixes the error?