[Rd] Is ALTREP "non-API"?

[Simon Urbanek]

> On Apr 23, 2024, at 10:29 AM, Hadley Wickham <h.wickham using gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 5:14 PM Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek using r-project.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Apr 22, 2024, at 7:37 PM, Gabriel Becker <gabembecker using gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Yutani,
> > 
> > ALTREP is part of the official R api, as illustrated by the presence of
> > src/include/R_ext/Altrep.h. Everything declared in the header files in that
> > directory is official API AFAIK (and I believe that is more definitive than
> > the manuals).
> > 
> 
> That is not true at all - the presence of header does not constitute declaration of something as the R API. There are cases where internal functions are in the headers for historical or other reasons since the headers are used both for the internal implementation and packages. That's why this is in R-exts under "The R API: entry points for C code":
> 
> If I understand your point correctly, does this mean that Rf_allocVector() is not part of the "official" R API? It does not appear to be documented in the "The R API: entry points for C code" section.
> 


It does, obviously:
https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Allocating-storage-1

Cheers,
Simon