- No authority
- Official reference is writing r extentions (joke extentions)
- If you thought writing regular r packages was tricky, hold on
- External libraries add a layer of complexity
- Portable packages need to work with different compilers and systems.
- Warning: People are opiniated and not always polite.
- Other people might tell you different things. I just tell you how I like to do it.
- Fine to mess around with pakcages on Github.
- Always thoroughly test before submitting to CRAN.
- Writing R Extentions
- CRAN Policy doc
- Hadleys chapter on C interface: http://adv-r.had.co.nz/C-interface.html
- C API: https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/src/include/Rinternals.h
- C bootcamp: http://gribblelab.org/CBootcamp/
Jeroen's Packages with anticonf scripts.
| Package | library | Lang | link type |
|---|---|---|---|
| commonmark | cmark | C | bundled |
| jsonlite | yajl | C | bundled |
| curl | libcurl + winhttp.dll | C | system |
| openssl | openssl | C | system |
| mongolite | mongo-c-driver | C | bundled |
| V8 | libv8 | C++ | system |
| xml2 | libxml2 | C | system |
| RMySQL | libmysqlclient | C | system |
Other packages
| Package | library | Lang | link type |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSQLite | sqlite | C | bundled |
| git2r | libgit2 | C | bundled |
| stringi | ICU | C++ | bundled |
| RProtoBuf | libprotobuf | C++ | system |
- R's package management system is modeled after Debian.
- DCF, configure, make
- Changed lot over time.
- CRAN now has lots of checks and requirements.
- Important choice. Both have pro's and con's.
Bundling entire library:
- Include the external C/C++ library with the package
- Need to configure for each system.
- Need to keep updating upstream library.
- Very difficult for complex packages
- Requires more disk space (not an argument)
Link to system library
- Dynamic linking: library has to be present on the build server and the user system
- Static linking: library has to be present only on the build server
- If a suitable version is availble, this is usually preferable
- The distro deals with config, dependency libraries, etc.
Flow:
- configure or configure.win (if any)
- make (via Makevars or Makevars.win if any)
- sources the R code
- copy everything and try to load
Make
- Preferred over configure
- Executes some rules to make files
- Access to everything in Makeconf
- Default: compile and link *.c and *.cpp
Configure scripts:
- Any scripting
- Always start with
#!/bin/bash - Hard to maintain. Makevars is more elegant.
- Start here because this is what R was made for. This is where things make sense, sort of.
- Install system libraries via pkg manager
- Dynamic linking: cran does not supply binary packages for Linux
- Debian/Ubuntu: -dev packages, rpm: -devel
- EC2 testing (video for Fedora / Debian / RHEL).
- VirtualBox for Solaris: opencsw
- Also Unix (BSD based)
- Clang instead of gcc.
- No native packager. But brew is really nice.
- No brew: just like linux (e.g. curl)
- To brew (everything else)
- Autobrew:
- build server (CRAN)
- user without brew
- Be careful: avoid dynamic linking!
- Static linking: self contained package.
- Tool chain: mingw-w64 gcc with some msys tools
- configure.win and Makevars.win
Linking to system DLL files
- Can't use lib files. Need an import lib file (libsomething.dll.a)
- For many system files these are included with mingw. Yay.
- For others you need a .def file and DLL tool. See makevars
- If you need to include the .dll file with your package, copy it to ./src during installation.
- R CMD check --as-cran
- Submit to win builder
- Check on Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu (e.g. via EC2)
- Check Solaris on VirtualBox