[Rd] make check on DU4 with R-1.1.0 snapshot

Kurt Hornik Kurt.Hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at
Sun, 4 Jun 2000 20:05:00 +0200


>>>>> Prof Brian D Ripley writes:

> On Fri, 2 Jun 2000, Albrecht Gebhardt wrote:
>> On Fri, 2 Jun 2000, Albrecht Gebhardt wrote:
>> 
>> > On Fri, 2 Jun 2000, Albrecht Gebhardt wrote:
>> > 
>> > > 
>> > > I just tried the rsync version of R-1.1.0 on one of my alphas:
>> > > It compiles without problems (gcc/g77 2.95.2, system is DU4.0E)
>> > > .........
>> > > 
>> > > I compiled --whithout-dxml, so I'm not using any special numeric library.
>> > > 
>> > 
>> > Sorry I mixed something up in my report: In this compile I used the alpha
>> > specific DXML library, in my rpms I omit it with --without-dxml (because
>> > it sometimes crashes). I will try once more now without dxml, may be this
>> > changes something, don't know if it gets used at all in the svd code.
>> > 
>> 
>> That was the reason. Now without DXML I pass the test without modifying
>> Eps:

> Nevertheless, the tolerance was too low. Most machines (e.g. Linux, 
> Solaris and Windows) are giving errors of 8 or 9 times the 
> machine precision, and with dxml you got 10x (and this failed as
> Eps was exactly 10x). eigen's help page has tolerances of 60x and 1000x,
> and I've given svd's 100x.

> [...]

>> So may be it is better do disable dxml support by default in ./configure?

> Well, what does dxml support do for you?  Making the errors 1x machine
> precision larger than without is hardly critical.  On the other hand, I am
> not convinced that these optimized blas operations are worthwhile for all
> but the most unusual uses of R.

> On the other hand, I think it would be worth omitting the check for
> -ldxml and -latlas except on appropriate platforms (whatever they
> are).

If we can give precise meaning to this, we can of course change the
configure time defaults accordingly.  Any suggestion?

On the other hand, if we turn too much OFF by default, we will need a
mechanism for developers to store their standard R configure arguments
somewhere so that they do not have to retype them all the time ...

-k
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