data.table 1.18.0 could not be installed on FreeBSD

I tried to updated data.table from 1.17.8 to 1.18.0 in R 4.5.2 installed on FreeBSD system. However, I get the following error:

gcc14 -I"/usr/local/lib/R/include" -DNDEBUG   -DLIBICONV_PLUG -I/usr/local/include -isystem /usr/local/include    -fpic  -O2 -pipe  -DLIBICONV_PLUG -fstack-protector-strong -isystem /usr/local/include -fno-strict-aliasing   -c utils.c -o utils.o
utils.c: In function 'is_direct_child':
utils.c:692:3: error: unknown type name 'siginfo_t'
  692 |   siginfo_t info;
      |   ^~~~~~~~~
utils.c:694:39: error: passing argument 3 of 'waitid' from incompatible pointer type [-Wincompatible-pointer-types]
  694 |     pret[i] = waitid(P_PID, ppids[i], &info, WCONTINUED | WEXITED | WNOHANG | WNOWAIT | WSTOPPED) == 0;
      |                                       ^~~~~
      |                                       |
      |                                       int *
In file included from utils.c:2:
/usr/include/sys/wait.h:160:32: note: expected 'struct __siginfo *' but argument is of type 'int *'
  160 | int     waitid(idtype_t, id_t, struct __siginfo *, int);
      |                                ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
gmake: *** [/usr/local/lib/R/etc/Makeconf:202: utils.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package ‘data.table’

Here is the output of sessionInfo():

> sessionInfo()
R version 4.5.2 (2025-10-31)
Platform: amd64-portbld-freebsd15.0
Running under: FreeBSD epyc 15.0-RELEASE-p1 FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p1 releng/15.0-n280999-7bceec30b351 GENERIC amd64

Matrix products: default
LAPACK: /usr/local/lib/R/lib/libRlapack.so;  LAPACK version 3.12.1

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

time zone: Asia/Shanghai
tzcode source: system (FreeBSD)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.5.2

Duplicate of #7512 which can suggest some possible workarounds -- I think something with Makevars will work.

See #7499. Thanks for reporting!

Sorry for not merging #7499 in time for the release. It will be there in 1.18.2 probably around end of January. Two workarounds for now:

Sys.setenv(PKG_CFLAGS='-D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L')
install.packages('data.table')

or

data.table::update_dev_pkg() # development version is almost the same as 1.18.0 for now

If neither works, please let us know and we'll develop a better fix.

Sorry for not merging #7499 in time for the release. It will be there in 1.18.2 probably around end of January. Two workarounds for now:

Sys.setenv(PKG_CFLAGS='-D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L')
install.packages('data.table')

After the above solution I got the following error:

gcc14 -I"/usr/local/lib/R/include" -DNDEBUG   -DLIBICONV_PLUG -I/usr/local/include -isystem /usr/local/include   '-D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L' -fpic  -O2 -pipe  -DLIBICONV_PLUG -fstack-protector-strong -isystem /usr/local/include -fno-strict-aliasing   -c fread.c -o fread.o
fread.c: In function 'wallclock':
fread.c:471:7: error: implicit declaration of function 'gettimeofday' [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  471 |   if (gettimeofday(&tv, NULL) == 0)
      |       ^~~~~~~~~~~~

or

data.table::update_dev_pkg() # development version is almost the same as 1.18.0 for now

After the above solution, I got the following error:

gcc14 -I"/usr/local/lib/R/include" -DNDEBUG   -DLIBICONV_PLUG -I/usr/local/include -isystem /usr/local/include    -fpic  -O2 -pipe  -DLIBICONV_PLUG -fstack-protector-strong -isystem /usr/local/include -fno-strict-aliasing   -c utils.c -o utils.o
utils.c: In function 'is_direct_child':
utils.c:693:3: error: unknown type name 'siginfo_t'
  693 |   siginfo_t info;
      |   ^~~~~~~~~
utils.c:695:39: error: passing argument 3 of 'waitid' from incompatible pointer type [-Wincompatible-pointer-types]
  695 |     pret[i] = waitid(P_PID, ppids[i], &info, WCONTINUED | WEXITED | WNOHANG | WNOWAIT | WSTOPPED) == 0;
      |                                       ^~~~~
      |                                       |
      |                                       int *
In file included from utils.c:3:
/usr/include/sys/wait.h:160:32: note: expected 'struct __siginfo *' but argument is of type 'int *'
  160 | int     waitid(idtype_t, id_t, struct __siginfo *, int);
      |                                ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If neither works, please let us know and we'll develop a better fix.

(textproc/R-data.table) Updated 1.16.4 to 1.18.4, Fix build against 4…

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data.table 1.18.0 could not be installed on FreeBSD #7516

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data.table 1.18.0 could not be installed on FreeBSD #7516

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MichaelChirico commented on Dec 25, 2025

aitap commented on Dec 25, 2025

jszhao commented on Dec 25, 2025

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