Skip to content

[Rcpp-devel] Using Rcpp in a package only as an option?

5 messages · Dirk Eddelbuettel, Tal Galili, Romain Francois +1 more

Original
Tal Galili
# 
Hello dear list members,

Following previous correspondence, I wish to use an Rcpp function inside a
package I'm authoring.
However, I do not wish to force the user to install Rcpp, and if he does
not wish to do so, I want to let him "fall back" on an R written function
(which is 20-40 times slower, but it works).
Looking at this Vignettes:
http://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/Rcpp/vignettes/Rcpp-package.pdf
I see that including Rcpp in a package require the use of "depends" in
DESCRIPTION.
Is there a way to have Rcpp as "Suggests", and to later use "require" when
loading the package, to decide if to load the Rcpp function or the R
function?
(alternatively, I could have a separate package only for that function, but
that feels a bit like a "hack" to me)

Thoughts?

With regards,
Tal





----------------Contact
Details:-------------------------------------------------------
Contact me: Tal.Galili at gmail.com |
Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) |
www.r-statistics.com (English)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.r-forge.r-project.org/pipermail/rcpp-devel/attachments/20130816/51a3c001/attachment.html>
Dirk Eddelbuettel
#
On 16 August 2013 at 19:36, Tal Galili wrote:
| Hello dear list members,
| 
| Following previous correspondence, I wish to use an Rcpp function inside a
| package I'm authoring.
| However, I do not wish to force the user to install Rcpp, and if he does not
| wish to do so, I want to let him "fall back" on an R written function (which is
| 20-40 times slower, but it works).
| Looking at this Vignettes:
| http://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/Rcpp/vignettes/Rcpp-package.pdf
| I see that including Rcpp in a package require the use of "depends" in
| DESCRIPTION.
| Is there a way to have Rcpp as "Suggests", and to later use "require" when
| loading the package, to decide if to load the Rcpp function or the R function?
| (alternatively, I could have a separate package only for that function, but
| that feels a bit like a "hack" to me)

If the code is used (ie not commented out) then it must be compiled and
linked and you must have the depends.

Your only choice may be to author two packages  'foo'  and   'fooFast'
where only the latter uses Rcpp.

Dirk
 
| Thoughts?
| 
| With regards,
| Tal
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| ----------------Contact
| Details:-------------------------------------------------------
| Contact me: Tal.Galili at gmail.com |?
| Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) |
| www.r-statistics.com (English)
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 
| 
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------
| _______________________________________________
| Rcpp-devel mailing list
| Rcpp-devel at lists.r-forge.r-project.org
| https://lists.r-forge.r-project.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rcpp-devel
Tal Galili
# 
I suspected that this is the case.
Will do - thanks.




----------------Contact
Details:-------------------------------------------------------
Contact me: Tal.Galili at gmail.com |
Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) |
www.r-statistics.com (English)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 7:52 PM, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.r-forge.r-project.org/pipermail/rcpp-devel/attachments/20130816/871eccc6/attachment.html>

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Romain Francois
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
Le 16/08/13 18:36, Tal Galili a ?crit :

            

      
      
      
    

        
The only way you could do that would be if your code was compiled at 
runtime, e.g. you'd have calls to sourceCpp in your R code, which is 
pretty inefficient and would require more work for you to setup.

In most cases your package is going to be distributed as binary anyway, 
so CRAN compiled it, and CRAN compiled Rcpp, so there should be nothing 
to worry.

Romain

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Hadley Wickham
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

          

      
      
      
    

        
And even if you're not distributing from source, telling (windows)
users to install rtools and then use install_github is not a big
barrier.

Hadley