Using GCC4/GFORTRAN with R (and R.app)

Paul,

Seem to remember Ripley bringing up some issues with gfortran bugs/ 
optimization on rdev a while back. Were those resolved?

I didn't re-iterate on gcc4 recently (will do later this month), but  
the last status was that the stdio problem persists, some simple  
Fortran code segfaults, but R will pass make check (when linked to  
static libgfortran) - so yes, it's possible. Right now I'm slightly  
out of spare cycles, but I plan to experiment with universal R binary  
later this month and that involves producing full binaries using  
gcc4 ...

Jan, if you have a spare minute, can you run some benchmarks of your  
gcc4-optimized R (preferably involving mostly Fortran code vs just C)  
against the CRAN binary? That would be quite helpful in assessing the  
current speed benefits...

Is there a plan for handling the binary distributions for the  
differing ABIs?

Yes in the sense that they will be separate. We have added one more  
directory level to the Mac binaries for that reason.

However, the ABI-fix currently applies to R internal code only, so  
packages that need those specific LAPACK functions will be on their  
own. I guess it would be possible to use a more elaborate fix or  
provide additional entry points, but there was no need (yet?).

Cheers,
Simon