[Rcpp-devel] Distribution of Rcpp codebase

[Gábor Csárdi]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Romain François <romain at r-enthusiasts.com>wrote:
[...]

> Oh, I see, you mean installing Rcpp* dependent packages from git(hub)
> directly. I imagine some people would want to put the headers into their
> tree, as ordinary files.
>
>
> Having the files into the client package is what I meant. This way, the
> developer of the package is in control of what version is used. The
> challenge is how to make it easy.
>

Sure, we are on the same page here. What I meant is that if the client
package is on CRAN, then you'll have to include the Rcpp* header files in
the package, obviously. Unless you create Rcpp* packages that contain
multiple versions of the headers, in different folders.....

Personally, if I created a client package for Rcpp11 today, I would just
copy over the header files, in a subfolder, and keep them unchanged, so
that it is easy to update them with a delete/copy.

If there is an RcppJam package that can update these files, perhaps add
compilation flags, etc., that's also great.

> Btw. I obviously don't have to tell you, but I want to point it out that
> this "snapshotting" is already possible today. I can just take the Rcpp*
> headers and put them in my package, and then I don't have to worry about
> future changes. This is assuming the package is header-only. With compiled
> code it is trickier, because of the name clashes.
>
>
> Good luck doing that with current Rcpp. Many functions are compiled into
> the shared library shipped with the package. It is not linking as it used
> to do it, which is the big win of 0.11.0, but there is still a library.
>
> Many of these functions go through the namespace of the Rcpp package, etc
> ... so you could snapshot Rcpp, but it would definitely not be easy at all.
>

I agree. With header-only packages it'll be easy. With compiled code it is
trickier, but C++ is actually easier than C, because for the name clashes,
you can just put the code in a new namespace. Then you'll need to redefine
"::" and ".Call" in your package, and even this might not be enough,
especially for Rcpp.

Gabor
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