[R-pkg-devel] Compiler choice on CRAN (R-windows-oldrel)

[Uwe Ligges]

On 25.08.2016 13:14, Mark van der Loo wrote:
> Thank you Peter, good points.
>
> Good to know for sure (or a.s.) that compiler specification at CRAN is not
> an option. The 4th option is interesting as well. I may just do that.
>
> Thanks again!
> Mark

For Windows, indeed, you are tight to gcc 4.6.3 for R < 3.3.0 and to gcc 
4.9.3 for R >= 3.3.0. If your package fails for gcc 4.6.3 we can live 
with it.

Same for the other platform CRAN runs checks for, typically there is one 
compiler (as specified on the CRAN web pages).

Best,
Uwe Ligges





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> Op do 25 aug. 2016 om 12:17 schreef peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>:
>
>> I don't have hard info on ABI compatibility between gcc versions, but
>> there have been issues in the past, at least with with gfortran.
>>
>> Now, many people/schools will have R-3.2.x installed, built with gcc
>> 4.6.y. We cannot retroactively recompile their installation, nor expect
>> them to install a new version built with gcc 4.9.z. This raises a specific
>> question and a generic one:
>>
>> - specific: Will a package binary of gower built with 4.9 work with R
>> built with 4.6?
>> - generic: Is is sufficiently likely that a given package if compiled with
>> a different compiler version that CRAN would consider having a mechanism to
>> specify a particular compiler version?
>>
>> I suspect that the answer to the second question is no.
>>
>> Whether to condition on R >= 3.3 is a good idea largely depends on two
>> things
>>
>> - the user base (would they upgrade R anyways?)
>> - are there other packages that depends on gower? (CRAN keeps only the
>> newest version of a package so requiring a newer R could affect users with
>> less aggressive update policies. This already happened when the pbkrtest
>> package update rendered the car package unloadable.)
>>
>> You do have a 4th option: conditionalize the _code_ on the R version, then
>> remove old-style code when 3.2.x becomes history.
>>
>> -pd
>>
>> On 25 Aug 2016, at 11:20 , Mark van der Loo <mark.vanderloo at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear listers,
>>>
>>>
>>> Compilation of my gower pkg fails on R-oldrel-windows. I am pretty sure
>>> that this is because it uses gcc 4.6.3 which has limited support for
>> OpenMP
>>> (the errors are the same as I got on the old travis-ci build environment,
>>> see my related question[1]).
>>>
>>> Now, according to the Rtools page[2], since R3.2.2 "Both the gcc 4.6.3
>>> toolchain and a toolchain based on gcc 4.9.3 and mingw-w64 v3 are now
>>> included." Not sure what that says about CRAN, but I'm hoping/guessing it
>>> uses Rtools the same way as we do.
>>>
>>> So I guess I have the following options:
>>>
>>> - make my package depend on R>=3.3
>>> - Alter my code (as kindly suggested by Ott Toomet in [1])
>>> - Tell CRAN to use the modern compiler.
>>>
>>> Obviously, the latter would be easiest. Is this is even possible? For a
>>> local installation I could set an environment variable[3], but how about
>>> doing this at CRAN?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Mark
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/2016q3/000983.html
>>> [2] https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/
>>> [3]
>>>
>> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-admin.html#Customizing-package-compilation
>>>
>>>       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-package-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
>>
>> --
>> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
>> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
>> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
>> Phone: (+45)38153501
>> Office: A 4.23
>> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
>>
>>
>
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