Issue installing package testthat R on Ubuntu 22.04

Question

I am trying to install 'devtools' in R. I cannot do it because it promps me a issue with 'testthat'. Then I tried to install it and I got:

> install.packages("testthat")
Installing package into ‘/home/alejo/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  243k  100  243k    0     0   192k      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:--  192k
Microsoft R Open 4.0.2
The enhanced R distribution from Microsoft
Microsoft packages Copyright (C) 2020 Microsoft Corporation

Using the Intel MKL for parallel mathematical computing (using 6 cores).

Default CRAN mirror snapshot taken on 2020-07-16.
See: https://mran.microsoft.com/.

* installing *source* package ‘testthat’ ...
** package ‘testthat’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** libs
gcc -std=gnu99 -I/opt/microsoft/ropen/4.0.2/lib64/R/include -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include     -DCOMPILING_TESTTHAT  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION   -fpic  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION -O2 -g  -c init.c -o init.o
gcc -std=gnu99 -I/opt/microsoft/ropen/4.0.2/lib64/R/include -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include -DCOMPILING_TESTTHAT  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION   -fpic  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION -O2 -g  -c reassign.c -o reassign.o
g++  -I/opt/microsoft/ropen/4.0.2/lib64/R/include -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include -DCOMPILING_TESTTHAT  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION   -fpic  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION -O2 -g  -c test-catch.cpp -o test-catch.o
g++  -I/opt/microsoft/ropen/4.0.2/lib64/R/include -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include -DCOMPILING_TESTTHAT  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION   -fpic  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION -O2 -g  -c test-example.cpp -o test-example.o
g++  -I/opt/microsoft/ropen/4.0.2/lib64/R/include -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include -DCOMPILING_TESTTHAT  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION   -fpic  -DU_STATIC_IMPLEMENTATION -O2 -g  -c test-runner.cpp -o test-runner.o
In file included from /usr/include/signal.h:328,
                 from ../inst/include/testthat/vendor/catch.h:6467,
                 from ../inst/include/testthat/testthat.h:65,
                 from ../inst/include/testthat.h:1,
                 from test-runner.cpp:7:
../inst/include/testthat/vendor/catch.h:6490:33: error: size of array ‘altStackMem’ is not an integral constant-expression
 6490 |         static char altStackMem[SIGSTKSZ];
      |                                 ^~~~~~~~
../inst/include/testthat/vendor/catch.h:6541:45: error: size of array ‘altStackMem’ is not an integral constant-expression
 6541 |     char FatalConditionHandler::altStackMem[SIGSTKSZ] = {};
      |                                             ^~~~~~~~
make: *** [/opt/microsoft/ropen/4.0.2/lib64/R/etc/Makeconf:168: test-runner.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package ‘testthat’
* removing ‘/home/alejo/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0/testthat’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package ‘testthat’ had non-zero exit status

I have tried other ways:

• https://anaconda.org/r/r-testthat
• https://github.com/r-lib/testthat/issues/450 (I dont have devtools to use github)
• https://testthat.r-lib.org/ (idem)

I am not skillful with linux and r, can someone help me?

Answer 1

If you are using Microsoft-R, what I did was to uninstall and install R for Cran. Then, I could install 'devtools'. What I understand of this issue, the version of r and microsoft-R is updated and therefore you cannot install the last version of 'testthat' (it is need for installin devtools).