From agarbutt at systemsbiology.org  Sat Feb 25 00:00:17 2006
From: agarbutt at systemsbiology.org (Andrew Garbutt)
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:00:17 -0800
Subject: [Rd] Rcpp, best method for linking to
Message-ID: <BFBA7186C5B3CB4C8EA0B509FA9090B3035B1CBF@exchange.systemsbiology.net>

Dominick,

Sorry, that's not quite what I was asking.  I was asking more of a "best
practice" kind of question. My own C++ codes compile fine and are
accessible to R with some great #define magic.  I was noting that the
Rcpp package has some generic classes to handle conversion of SEXP
structures to STL and back again. As I far as I can see, using them
would require that I compile the C++ code into a library and link to
that library. Or copy the code into my own code base, but doing would
restrict myself to the GPL, as it would be a derivative work?? (IANAL)
At this point I do not want to commit to any particular licensure for my
package.  

So, to sum up my "actual" question... 
Is it better to create a libRcpp.a and link to that? Have a copy of the
Rcpp.cpp/.hpp files in my own code base compiling them directly?
Require that any particular R installation have the requirement that the
Rcpp package be installed prior?

Thanks for your time,
Andy

-----Original Message-----
From: Dominick Samperi [mailto:dsamperi at DecisionSynergy.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 2:30 PM
To: Andrew Finley
Cc: Andrew Garbutt; r-devel at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [Rd] Rcpp, best method for linking to


Hi Andy (and Andy),

I'm not sure why there should be any licensing issues. R itself is
GPL-ed,
so I just followed this convention.

Of course, you can do it yourself with extern "C" and all that. The
purpose of Rcpp.{cpp,hpp} is to enable you to write
readable code (for a C++ programmer) while hiding the error-prone
macro gymnastics that is required to fetch R parameters when using
the .Call interface. There is also a fair amount of type checking done
in the Rcpp package that relieves you of the trouble of putting many
checks in your R code.

If you are using the older, simpler .C interface this may not be
important to you. But note that the same functionality is available
through Rcpp, with the added convenience that list item names
are not dropped like they are when you use the .C interface.

Dominick

Andrew Finley wrote:
> Hi Andy,
> Follow the suggestions for c++ in the Writing R Extensions document.
> Wrap your c++ code in extern "C"{}, include your classes in the
includes
> (e.g., #include "myclass.h") and put the myclass.h and myclass.cpp in
> the src directory along with your other code. Then R CMD build ... and
R
> CMD INSTALL ...  This works for me. 
> -Andy
>
>
> On Fri, 2006-02-24 at 13:11 -0800, Andrew Garbutt wrote:
>   
>> Dear all,
>>
>>  
>>
>> After a bit of reading I came across the Rcpp example package.  There
>> are a few classes that I would like to use and I am not sure how best
to
>> include them in my own package.  Is it best to compile it as an
>> independent library and link to it? Or is there some way to `require`
it
>> for my own package?  Re-write using the code as an example (unsure
how
>> best to do this at this moment, as the Rcpp package is licensed under
>> the GPL v2 and I am unsure of the license that I wish to use for my
own
>> package.)  Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andy 
>>
>>
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>



[Rd] Rcpp, best method for linking to
Andrew Garbutt