Hi Dirk,

Thank you very much, your answers are always helpful and point me to the
right direction.
And I also hope the C++11 proposal (
https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2013-October/067677.html) will be
approved soon. :-)


Simon


On 11/03/2013 09:54 PM, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> On 3 November 2013 at 11:35, Simon wrote:
> | Hi,
> | 
> | Recently, I made an R package that used the C++ library Boost.Thread (http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_54_0/doc/html/thread.html) for multithreading.  Previously, I have posted a question at stackoverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19651954/is-it-possible-to-build-an-r-package-which-use-rcpp-and-boost-thread-on-http), and I also asked at rcpp-devel (http://lists.r-forge.r-project.org/pipermail/rcpp-devel/2013-November/006777.html).  Dirk Eddelbuettel suggested me ask here.  After some tries on win-builder and some research on CRAN, there are still some doubts:
>
> Thanks for posting here, and for including code.  I tried to answer both your
> questions before. You are now providing more and more context which helps.
>  
> | 1) For my package to be accepted by CRAN, I am not so sure if it is acceptable to let users to install Boost library themselves?  If not, are there any solutions? I found there are some third party external software or libraries used by other R packages, such as OpenMP and gtk, some of which have corresponding R packages, but there are little discuss about Boost.
> | 
> | (I now know there are some other ways to host my package, but I think CRAN is more straight forward, though it may be stricter.)
>
> This question is really several questions:
>
> 1a) If I write a package using library xyz, do users need xyz to compile my
>     package?
>
>     Yes of course. 
>
> 1b) If I write a package using library xyz, do _windows_ users need xyz to
>     _use_ my package?
>
>     No as CRAN provides Windows binary packages.
>
> 1c) What about the other OSs?
>
>     It depends. If users need to compile first, then yes. But Boost is very
>     standard on OS X and Linux. 
>
> So yes, it is quite acceptable to depend on Boost.
>  
>
> | 2) As I said in my question at stackoverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19651954/is-it-possible-to-build-an-r-package-which-use-rcpp-and-boost-thread-on-http), I have tried MAKE variable BOOSTLIB on win-builder (http://win-builder.r-project.org/), It is OK for header-only Boost libraries.  I am not sure whether it is OK for separately-compiled libraries such as Boost.Thread, after many fails.  Is it possible? Are there any special variables or path for Boost.Thread?  May I suppose that it is acceptable for 1) if there are, or at least for header-only Boost libraies?
>
> I do not know if BOOSTLIB on win-builder and CRAN also points to a library
> you can use. And I cannot think of a package using it.  Maybe Uwe Ligges will
> be able to help you here.
>
> | (There are an R package called BH provides header-only Boost libraries, but BOOSTLIB make me imagine something else.)
>
> BOOSTLIB predates the creation of our BH package by several years.  
>
> Dirk
>
>


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