Hi again,
While I can't explain the issue I've described so far (re: installation from source).
I have finally come across this page: https://r.research.att.com/#other
that offers, among others, an installer package for R-devel 3.5.0:
R-devel
3.5.0 Under development (unstable)
(2017/12/11, r73889)
After using the 'double-click installer' (as oppose to the compilation from source I previously did), I have now:
$ ls -l /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/
total 0
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 96 12 Dec 09:29 3.4
drwxrwxr-x 6 root admin 192 12 Dec 09:29 3.5
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 3 12 Dec 09:29 Current -> 3.5
Nevertheless, I would still like to keep this thread open until the following puzzle is answered:
After the installation above, when I open RStudio, why do I see:
R Under development (unstable) (2017-12-11 r73889) -- "Unsuffered Consequences"
[...]
> Sys.which("R")
R
"/usr/local/bin/R"
> Sys.getenv("PATH")
[1] "/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin"
which means that it is now using the 'double-click-installed' R in /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/ (based on the date of the snapshot), while both Sys.which and Sys.getenv indicate that it should be using the /usr/local/bin/R.
Actually, I may have a hint of what's happening, following the 'double-click installer'
$ /usr/local/bin/R
R Under development (unstable) (2017-12-11 r73889) -- "Unsuffered Consequences"
$ ls -lh /usr/local/bin/R*
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 53B 12 Dec 09:29 /usr/local/bin/Rscript -> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/Rscript
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 47B 12 Dec 09:29 /usr/local/bin/R -> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/R
Note that the sources from which I compiled /usr/local/bin/R are marked:
$ less SVN-REVISION
Revision: 73866
Last Changed Date: 2017-12-07
My guess is my make install didn't create some links to help RStudio detect the /usr/local/bin/R that I compiled from source (2017-12-07)