internal copying in R (soon to be released R-3.1.0

Dear core group,

Which operation in R guarantees to get a true copy of an atomic vector, not just a second symbol pointing to the same shared memory?

None, there is no concept of "shared" memory at R level. You seem to be mixing C level API specifics and the R language. In the former duplicate() creates a new copy.
y <- x[]
#?

y <- x
y[1] <- y[1]
#?

Is there any function that returns its argument as a non-shared atomic but only copies if the argument was shared?

Given an atomic vector x, what is the best official way to find out whether other symbols share the vector RAM? Querying NAMED() < 2 doesn't work because .Call sets sxpinfo_struct.named to 2. It even sets it to 2 if the argument to .Call was a never-named expression!?

named(1:3)
[1] 2

Assuming that you are talking about the C API, please consider reading about the concepts involved. .Call() doesn't set named to 2 at all - it passes whatever object is passed so it is the C code's responsibility to handle incoming objects according to the desired semantics (see the previous post here).
And it seems to set it permanently, pure read-access can trigger copy-on-modify:

x <- integer(1e8)
system.time(x[1]<-1L)
      User      System verstrichen
         0           0           0
system.time(x[1]<-2L)
      User      System verstrichen
         0           0           0

having called .Call now leads to an unnecessary copy on the next assignment

named(x)
[1] 2
system.time(x[1]<-3L)
      User      System verstrichen
      0.14        0.07        0.20
system.time(x[1]<-4L)
      User      System verstrichen
         0           0           0

this not only happens with user written functions doing read-access

is.unsorted(x)
[1] TRUE
system.time(x[1]<-5L)
      User      System verstrichen
      0.11        0.09        0.21

Why don't you simply give package authors read-access to sxpinfo_struct.named in .Call (without setting it to 2)? That would give us more control and also save some unnecessary copying.
Again, you're barking up the wrong tree - .Call() doesn't bump NAMED at all - it simply passes the object:

#include <Rinternals.h>
SEXP nam(SEXP x) { return ScalarInteger(NAMED(x)); }
.Call("nam", 1+1)
[1] 0
x=1+1
.Call("nam", x)
[1] 1
y=x
.Call("nam", x)
[1] 2

Cheers,
Simon
I guess once R switches to reference-counting preventive increasing in .Call could not be continued anyhow.

Kind regards

Jens Oehlschl?gel

P.S. please cc me in answers as I am not member of r-devel

P.P.S. function named() was tentatively defined as follows:

named <- function(x)
 .Call("R_bit_named", x, PACKAGE="bit")

SEXP R_bit_named(SEXP x){
 SEXP ret_;
 PROTECT( ret_ = allocVector(INTSXP,1) );
 INTEGER(ret_)[0] = NAMED(x);
 UNPROTECT(1);
 return ret_;
}

version
              _
platform       x86_64-w64-mingw32
arch           x86_64
os             mingw32
system         x86_64, mingw32
status         Under development (unstable)
major          3
minor          1.0
year           2014
month          02
day            28
svn rev        65091
language       R
version.string R Under development (unstable) (2014-02-28 r65091)
nickname       Unsuffered Consequences

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internal copying in R (soon to be released R-3.1.0

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