[Rd] How to prepare/submit packages with external dependency?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Simon has given very useful advice.  The only thing I would add is that if 
any one is submitting to CRAN and concerned to cover Windows, please talk 
to Uwe Ligges whose autobuilder will make the CRAN Windows binary 
versions.  (Uwe does a great job, and is likely to contact the maintainer 
if there are problems but it is helpful to make the first approach.)

On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Andrew Finley wrote:

> Thanks guys,
> I'll look at RquantLib as an example.  The port requires boost shared
> pointers.  Currently the package resides at
> http://blue.fr.umn.edu/data/MBA_0.0-2.tar.gz  It's all ready to go but for
> this simple dependency.  Thanks again for the info.
> -Andrew
> 
> On 4 Aug 2006, Simon Urbanek wrote:
> > Andrew,
> > 
> > On Aug 4, 2006, at 4:49 PM, Andrew Finley wrote:
> > 
> > > I'd like to submit a new package that ports some code which uses  
> > > the boost c++ library (i.e., an external dependency).  I have  
> > > written a linux/unix configure file as described in the Witting R  
> > > Extensions but don't know enough about windows to write a windows  
> > > configure/makefile.
> > >
> > 
> > The Makefile/Makevars should be essentially the same for WIndows and  
> > unix, because Windows build uses GNU make and gcc as well. In most  
> > cases the only difference is that you put the Windows settings  
> > directly in Makevars.win instead of using autoconf to create Makevars  
> > from Makevars.in.
> > The usual procedure for external libraries is to use an environment  
> > variable to specify where the library lives on Windows at build time.  
> > configure.win is sometimes used to copy the dependent DLL into  
> > package's libs directory such that package can be provided in a stand- 
> > alone binary form. Another alternative is to use static library  
> > instead. You may want to look at other packages on CRAN that use  
> > external libraries.
> > I can't really give you any more specific tips, because you didn't  
> > even tell us what package you are talking about.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Simon
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
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> > 
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
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