[R-pkg-devel] Optional library dependencies for compiled code

[Travers Ching]

I'd like to add, for bundling `zstd` and `lz4`, I was told by Professor
Ripley that I must first check for system installations and use that when
possible, because of possible security issues being fixed in later
updates.

I think that's a good idea, and can be set up with a configure script: 1)
check for later version system installations e.g. with `pkg-config`, 2) use
system if it exists, 3) otherwise compile bundled `zstd`.

On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 8:40 AM Iñaki Ucar <iucar using fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 15:11, Guido Kraemer <gkraemer using bgc-jena.mpg.de>
> wrote:
> >
> > I am developing an R package that can make (optional, but strongly
> > recommended) use of a number of external compression algorithms. What is
> > the best strategy if I want to distribute this as an R package? Because
> > the package is for reading large external data sets, the package will
> > probably not be very useful without compression.
> >
> > - Make a hard dependency on all external libraries and make user
> > manually disable it if they cannot install a library for some reason?
> >
> > - Make no dependency on external libraries and have the user compile it
> > manually if they want compression?
> >
> > - Look for installed libraries and use only these? (If so: How would I
> > do this during the installation of an R package?)
> >
> > - How does this work on Windows?
> >
> > The possible compressions are: blosc, zlib, bzip2, lz4, xz
>
> You could take a look at the fst package [1], which bundles the zstd
> library [2]. And that's probably everything you need. Or you may want
> to directly use the fst package if your target is tabular data.
>
> [1] https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/fst/index.html
> [2] https://github.com/facebook/zstd
>
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