While linking to package shared libs is not possible in general, as Simon
point out, it is
possible under Windows, provided Windows knows how to find the library
linked to
at runtime (this requires a customized Makefile.win). One way this is done
under
Windows is simply to place the package/libs directories containing the
package
shared libs to be linked to in the Windows search path, but this may be a
problem for packages released to CRAN since this would require updates
to CRAN's PATH environment variable.

Another possibility is to load all packages containing shared libs to be
linked to
before using any shared lib that is dynamically linked to them. For example,
if
B.dll is dynamically linked to A.dll (and both A and B are packages), and if
foo() is a function in B.dll that uses functions in A.dll, then this will
work:

library(A)
library(B)
.Call('foo')

But this is not a very natural or convenient solution. It requires that
library()
commands be used with every instance of Rscript, for example.

A better solution would be some variant of LinkingTo: A that somehow has the
same effect as setting Windows search path to include the libs directory
containing A.dll and B.dll.

Of course, most of the issues disappear when linking to static libs instead
of dynamic ones, and it is not clear that the extra effort needed to support
dynamic libs will yield much benefit in this case.

Dominick

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 12:55 PM, Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek@r-project.org
> wrote:

> Romain,
>
> I think your'e confusing two entirely different concepts here:
>
> 1) LinkingTo: allows a package to provide C-level functions to other
> packages (see R-ext 5.4). Let's say package A provides a function foo by
> calling R_RegisterCCallable for that function. If a package B wants to use
> that function, it uses LinkingTo: and calls R_GetCCallable to obtain the
> function pointer. It does not actually link to package A because that is in
> general not possible - it simply obtains the pointers through R. In
> addition, LinkingTo: makes sure that you have access to the header files of
> package A which help you to cast the functions and define any data
> structures you may need. Since C++ is a superset of C you can use this
> facility with C++ as long as you don't depend on anything outside of the
> header files.
>
> 2) linking directly to another package's shared object is in general not
> possible, because packages are not guaranteed to be dynamic libraries. They
> are usually shared objects which may or may not be compatible with a dynamic
> library on a given platform. Therefore the R-ext describes other way in
> which you may provide some library independently of the package shared
> object to other packages (see R-ext 5.8). The issue is that you have to
> create a separate library (PKG/libs[/arch]/PKG.so won't work in general!)
> and provide this to other packages. As 5.8 says, this is in general not
> trivial because it is very platform dependent and the most portable way is
> to offer a static library.
>
> To come back to your example, LinkingTo: A and B will work if you remove
> Makevars from B (you don't want to link) and put your hello method into the
> A.h header:
>
> > library (B)
> Loading required package: A
> > .Call("say_hello", PACKAGE = "B")
> [1] "hello"
>
> However, your'e not really using the LinkingTo: facilities for the
> functions so it's essentially just helping you to find the header file.
>
> Cheers,
> Simon
>
>
>
> On Feb 11, 2010, at 4:08 AM, Romain Francois wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I've been trying to make LinkingTo work when the package linked to has
> c++ code.
> >
> > I've put dumb packages to illustrate this emails here ;
> http://addictedtor.free.fr/misc/linkingto
> >
> > Package A defines this C++ class:
> >
> > class A {
> > public:
> >       A() ;
> >       ~A() ;
> >       SEXP hello() ;
> > } ;
> >
> > Package B has this function :
> >
> > SEXP say_hello(){
> >       A a ;
> >       return a.hello() ;
> > }
> >
> > headers of package A are copied into inst/include so that package B can
> have.
> >
> > LinkingTo: A
> >
> > in its DESCRIPTION file.
> >
> > Also, package B has the R function ;
> >
> > g <- function(){
> >       .Call("say_hello", PACKAGE = "B")
> > }
> >
> > With this I can compile A and B, but then I get :
> >
> > $ Rscript -e "B::g()"
> > Error in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...) :
> >  unable to load shared library '/usr/local/lib/R/library/B/libs/B.so':
> >  /usr/local/lib/R/library/B/libs/B.so: undefined symbol: _ZN1AD1Ev
> > Calls: :: ... tryCatch -> tryCatchList -> tryCatchOne -> <Anonymous>
> >
> > If I then add a Makevars in B with this :
> >
> >
> > # find the root directory where A is installed
> > ADIR=$(shell $(R_HOME)/bin/Rscript -e "cat(system.file(package='A'))" )
> >
> > PKG_LIBS= $(ADIR)/libs/A$(DYLIB_EXT)
> >
> >
> > Then it works:
> >
> > $ Rscript -e "B::g()"
> > [1] "hello"
> >
> > So it appears that adding the -I flag, which is what LinkingTo does is
> not enough when the package "linking from" (B) actually has to link to the
> "linked to" package (A).
> >
> > I've been looking at
> http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Registering-native-routinesbut it seems only applicable to c(++) functions and not classes ...
> >
> > What am I missing ? Should/can linkingto be extended in a way that
> accomodates c++
> >
> > Romain
> >
> >
> > --
> > Romain Francois
> > Professional R Enthusiast
> > +33(0) 6 28 91 30 30
> > http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
> > |- http://tr.im/NrTG : Rcpp 0.7.5
> > |- http://tr.im/MPYc : RProtoBuf: protocol buffers for R
> > `- http://tr.im/KfKn : Rcpp 0.7.2
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
> >
>
> ______________________________________________
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>

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