R In install.packages(“RGtk2”) : fatal error: 'gdk/gdkx.h' file not found

Question

when I install.packages(\"RGtk2\") in R this I get this problem:

    fatal error: \'gdk/gdkx.h\' file not found
#include 
         ^
1 erro         


        

Answer 1

The installation of RGtk2 can be much easier now. First install Homebrew, then in R:

system('brew install gtk+')
install.packages(
  'RGtk2', type = 'mac.binary.el-capitan', repos = 'https://macos.rbind.org'
)

If you do not prefer using the repository https://macos.rbind.org (which was created by me) to install the pre-built binary package, you may just install RGtk2 from source:

system('brew install gtk+')
install.packages('RGtk2', type = 'source')

In case anyone is curious about the technical details, the error "'gdk/gdkx.h' file not found" has been fixed in this commit in the RGtk2 repo on Github.

Answer 2

According to the INSTALL documentation, you have to have Gtk libraries installed first:

In all cases (i.e. Unix or Windows, source or binary), you will need to have the appropriate Gtk libraries.

For Windows, you can download the GTK Developer's Pack from http://gladewin32.sourceforge.net/

For Unix, you can fetch the source files for the different libraries from ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.8/

GTK makes extensive use of other libraries and particular versions of these dependant libraries. As a result, installing GTK (under Unix) can be a time consuming and apparently indirect process that involves installing numerous sub-libraries.

I suspect HomeBrew's Gtk might not be installed on your system properly.

Further research reveals similar problems, as well as suggested troubleshooting to get Gtk and RGtk2 to work together.