[Rcpp-devel] Rcpp compiler support and tests for suitable compilers

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

The Rcpp (and RInside) documentation attempts to make it clear that the set
of supported compilers is definied by R Core via the support in R and its
tools.  

Rcpp is first and foremost an extension package for R, it does not live by
itself out there in the wild.  So useful compilers are the ones used by R
Core and the CRAN support teams.

In other words, Rcpp is supported for 

   gcc/g++ on Linux, OS X and Windows (via MinGW in Rtools for the latter)

   suncc on Linux, Solaris and whereever else you find it

and just about nothing else.  

Two gcc-compatible compilers may also work: Intel's icc (has anybody here
tried it?) as well as the newer up-and-coming clang/llvm for which we already
applied a patch. 

Astute reader will by now have realized that this list does included products
from Microsoft, Borland, ...   Indeed, those compilers *are not supported*. 

This does not seem to stop people from trying, and possibly getting very
frustrated.  Some folks then send us mail asking for help -- but as per the
discussion above there is no reasonable expectation of such support.  

Long story short: Going forward we will test for suitable compilers in the
header files and emit an error pragma if no matching compiler is detected.
If you plan on working with icc, please email us --- gcc, suncc and clang
should be taken care of.

Cheers, Dirk

-- 
Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com