[Rd] Question about writing portable packages

[Gray]

Kevin Ushey: (12:10AM on Fri, Jun 07)
>I think the key word here is _other_ packages. It's entirely okay to call
>your package's own compiled code through the .Call interface (and the code
>you write may link to other packages; the obvious example being Rcpp code
>you write); however, it is not portable to use .Call to call compiled code
>from another package directly. This is because package authors are not
>required to maintain a consistent .Call interface to their compiled code;
>rather, they just have to make sure the direct user-facing R exported
>functions retain a stable interface over different versions (or, if
>changed, are done so with prior warning etc.)

Also remember that, as long as you obey all of the licenses, you can
simply copy the source code that needs to be compiled into your own
package.  You'll obviously need to track development of the other
package (which you'll need to do anyway) but then you can be sure that
the calls you want to use work.

-- 
Gray Calhoun, Assistant Professor of Economics at Iowa State 
http://gray.clhn.co (web)