configure: error: geos-config not found or not executable. ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgeos’ problem while installing sf package on MacOS

[muhammetozkaraca]

I tried a couple of hours to install sf package (on MacOs) by using most of the solutions I encountered on the web but still, it did not work. Let me show, what I did and then what the problem is step by step.

First, I tried the normal thing install.packages("sf") which resulted in the following error.

URL 'https://cran.rstudio.com/bin/macosx/contrib/4.1/sf_1.0-2.tgz' deneniyor
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 93022013 bytes (88.7 MB)
====================================
downloaded 65.3 MB

Warning in install.packages :
  downloaded length 68510897 != reported length 93022013
Warning in install.packages :
  URL 'https://cran.rstudio.com/bin/macosx/contrib/4.1/sf_1.0-2.tgz': Timeout of 60 seconds was reached
Error in download.file(url, destfile, method, mode = "wb", ...) : 
  download from 'https://cran.rstudio.com/bin/macosx/contrib/4.1/sf_1.0-2.tgz' failed
Warning in install.packages :
  download of package ‘sf’ failed

Following that, I tried to comply with the instructions in this website https://github.com/r-spatial/sf. To this end, I first installed home brew and then rendered these two codes on the MacOS terminal.

brew install pkg-config 
brew install gdal

And, finally, in line with the website's suggestion, I run this code to install rgdal package to get sf installed.

install.packages("rgdal", configure.args = c("--with-proj-lib=/usr/local/lib/", "--with-proj-include=/usr/local/include/"))

However, it came with the following error.

  There is a binary version available but the source version is later:
      binary source needs_compilation
rgdal 1.5-26 1.5-27              TRUE

Do you want to install from sources the package which needs compilation? (Yes/no/cancel) Yes
installing the source package ‘rgdal’

URL 'https://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/rgdal_1.5-27.tar.gz' deneniyor
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 4391149 bytes (4.2 MB)
==================================================
downloaded 4.2 MB

* installing *source* package ‘rgdal’ ...
** package ‘rgdal’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
configure: R_HOME: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources
configure: CC: clang -mmacosx-version-min=10.13
configure: CXX: clang++ -mmacosx-version-min=10.13 -std=gnu++14
configure: CFLAGS: -Wall -g -O2
configure: CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/include
configure: CXXFLAGS: -Wall -g -O2
configure: LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/lib
configure: LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/lib
configure: CXX11 is: clang++ -mmacosx-version-min=10.13, CXX11STD is: -std=gnu++11
configure: CXX is: clang++ -mmacosx-version-min=10.13 -std=gnu++11
configure: C++11 support available
configure: rgdal: 1.5-27
checking for /usr/bin/svnversion... no
configure: svn revision: 1148
checking for gdal-config... no
no
configure: error: gdal-config not found or not executable.
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgdal’
* removing ‘/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.1/Resources/library/rgdal’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package ‘rgdal’ had non-zero exit status

The downloaded source packages are in
	‘/private/var/folders/tc/g15hmz9s0hg1nxmh7_4mw9lm0000gn/T/RtmplfPV9h/downloaded_packages’

As suggested in this website https://github.com/r-spatial/sf, I alternatively tried the solutions in #1536 (comment).

Yet, in the part 2, when I run this code chunk,

install.packages("rgeos", repos="http://R-Forge.R-project.org", type="source")
install.packages("rgdal", repos="http://R-Forge.R-project.org", type="source")
library(devtools)
install_github("r-spatial/sf", configure.args = "--with-proj-lib=/usr/local/lib/")

A similar problem emerged for all these codes. For instance, for the first one, the error was;

URL 'http://R-Forge.R-project.org/src/contrib/rgeos_0.5-8.tar.gz' deneniyor
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 276303 bytes (269 KB)
==================================================
downloaded 269 KB

* installing *source* package ‘rgeos’ ...
** using staged installation
configure: CC: clang -mmacosx-version-min=10.13
configure: CXX: clang++ -mmacosx-version-min=10.13 -std=gnu++14
configure: rgeos: 0.5-7
checking for /usr/bin/svnversion... no
cat: inst/SVN_VERSION: No such file or directory
configure: svn revision: 
checking for geos-config... no
no
configure: error: geos-config not found or not executable.
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgeos’
* removing ‘/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.1/Resources/library/rgeos’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package ‘rgeos’ had non-zero exit status

The downloaded source packages are in
	‘/private/var/folders/tc/g15hmz9s0hg1nxmh7_4mw9lm0000gn/T/RtmplfPV9h/downloaded_packages’

And lastly, I followed the instructions to solve this problem on this website; https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44973639/trouble-installing-sf-due-to-gdal

First: gdalinfo --version code resulted in GDAL 3.3.2, released 2021/09/01
Second, I did brew unlink gdal, yet when I run brew link --force gdal2, it did not work. (I am a new user so I assumed it might be because of different versions but when I tried brew link --force gdal3.3.2, it gave me the error Error: No such keg: /opt/homebrew/Cellar/gdal3.3.2.

So, if you can help me how to install sf on MacOS, I will be very glad for that.

[muhammetozkaraca]

Based upon a solution that I received in Stack overflow, the problem is solved.