[Rd] Mathlib

[Kurt Hornik]

>>>>> 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?

In a way, this had always been the plan, so I would say yes it is worth
the trouble.

One issue is the naming issue.  I'd still recommend `Rmath'.  We should
also try to standardized the header file procedure.  (E.g., by declaring
#include <Rmath.h> as the official way ...)

Most likely, this would require setting up a second configure.in in the
Rmath (nmath) srcdir, but that shouldn't be to hard ...

-k
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