Prof Brian Ripley writes:
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 11:41:12 +0100 (CET)
From: Martyn Plummer <plummer@iarc.fr>
To: R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: [Rd] Mathlib
First of all I would like to join the chorus of approval over the release
of R 1.0.0. It really is an excellent piece of software. I'm sure you
will astonish us again with Omega.
I have a query about Mathlib. It is such a nice collection of functions
that it would be nice to use it in other software, not necessarily related
to R. Is it possible to build Mathlib separately, and/or install the
shared object and the header file in a more public place?
It has been possible. Note that the header file has a switch
/*-- Mathlib as part of R -- undefine this for standalone : */
#define MATHLIB_IN_R
which controls whether R error handling is used.
Now, I suspect that it may not be totally in a state where it can be
used separately in 1.0.0, as this may well not have been tested
recently. It did work at some stage between 0.90.1 and 0.99.0, as
I tested it during the API changes, but there have been a lot
of changes since, and at least two of those (log1p and pnorm5) have
failed in the standalone case when I tried just now.
The other problem is that some careful configuring would be needed for
the settings of e.g. ISNAN.
Is it worth trying to set up a configure script and Makefile.in to build
a standalone libnmath.a? I suspect Martyn is suggesting that it is?