[Rcpp-devel] Using "Rcpp Modules" under Solaris fails to load.

[Martyn Plummer]

On Tue, 2015-03-17 at 09:42 -0500, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> Hi Marius,
> 
> On 17 March 2015 at 15:26, Marius Wirths wrote:
> | Hello everybody,
> |  
> | this is my very first post on this mailing list so if I have made any mistakes 
> | please feel free to point me to it.
> |  
> | I have written a package for R. This package internally uses Rcpp-Modules.
> 
> Cool. So do quite a few other packages on CRAN.
> 
> | However my package got rejected from CRAN due to the fact that my package can
> | not be loaded under Solaris. So, i set up a virtual machine with Solaris 10 to
> | find the error in my code. For now it appears to me, that it is not possible to
> | use Rcpp-Modules under Solaris using Oracle Studio 12 compilers (which are used
> | by CRAN as far as i know).
> 
> I just glanced at two of mine.  Both are fine on r-patched-solaris-x86 but
> fail on r-patched-solaris-sparc due to a compiler issue when dealing with
> Boost headers via the BH package. I have more package with Modules on CRAN
> but don't have time now to check all of them.
> 
> | I created a minimal example through:
> |  
> | "Rcpp.package.skeleton("somename", module=TRUE)"
> |  
> | I removed every file from the "src"-folder except the "Num.cpp" file and
> | reduced the content of the "zzz.R" file located in the "R" folder to the single
> | line "loadModule("NumEx", TRUE)".
> | Compiling this minimal example with the latest version of R using the Oracle
> | Studio 12 compilers results in the output given below. Also i have used the
> | following enviroment variables (which are used by CRAN too):
> 
> [...]
>   
> | Output generated through "R CMD INSTALL ./somename" :
> |  
> | # R CMD INSTALL ./somename
> 
> [...]
>   
> | I have no idea how to solve this problem. Using the "Rcpp.package.skeleton"
> | without "module=TRUE" compiles just fine (except for one warning) and can be
> | loaded:
> 
> [...]
> 
> | If you need any further informations to help me please feel free to ask.
> 
> 
> It is a tricky situation.  I don't quite know how to say this -- nobody
> actively working with Rcpp has access to Solaris or interest in it (maybe
> Martyn Plummer excepted).  So right now you are effectively being held
> hostage over a build failure on an architecture nobody uses. 

Well that is one interpretation. Another one is that as a testing
platform Solaris exposes weaknesses in C++ code that are not found by
other platforms due to its fastidious interpretation of the C++98
standard.

For example, Solaris Studio distinguishes between functions with C and C
++ linkage. In Marius's test package this generates multiple warnings
and may be the cause of the missing symbol, which demangles as:

Rcpp::standard_delete_finalizer<Num>(__type_0*)

As you can see, __type_0 is just a placeholder, so something went wrong
with the linkage.

Marius, if you mail me your test package I will see what it gives me.

Martyn

> You could stop using Modules.
> 
> Or you could add a LinkingTo: BH as your package would fail like mine. At
> least that masks the other issue ;-)
> 
> Dirk
> 

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