[Rd] beginner's guide to C++ programming with R packages?

[Whit Armstrong]

> But this draws me back to the basic question.  I don't want to run R
> CMD INSTALL 20 times per hour.  How do developers "actually" test
> their code?

check out RUnit for tests.
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RUnit/index.html

as for testing c++ code.  I have taken an approach which is probably
different than most.  I try to build my package as a c++ library that
can be used independent of R.  Then you can test your library with
whatever c++ test suite that you prefer.  Once you are happy, then
simply write bindings to convert R's SEXP objects into something
consumable by your library (usually this is just whatever the SEXP
points at). Using git submodules is a nice way to keep your library
separate from the R interface.

here's an example for you.
tslib, which has it's own c++ test suite (using boost.test):
http://github.com/armstrtw/tslib/blob/5b0fe2fc5ecb393d1dca097c2c19008227eb6c7e/test/test.cpp
and fts which simply implements wrappers to call
tslib:http://github.com/armstrtw/fts/blob/2b6cb4045f852211b9334b43730409a13dd353c0/src/interface.cpp

Also, check out Dirk's Rcpp package, which should make your life
easier if you use c++, and check out my RAbstraction package which
tries to do what Rcpp does using templates.

http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rcpp/index.html
http://github.com/armstrtw/rabstraction/tree/master

-Whit