[Rd] windows 64-bit package build on 32-bit machine

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 26 Oct 2010, Simon Urbanek wrote:

>
> On Oct 26, 2010, at 9:04 PM, Michael Spiegel wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Is it possible to build a 64-bit package on a 32-bit machine on
>> windows? I can cross-compile for x86, x86_64, and ppc on a 32-bit OS X
>> machine.  And it looks like I could build a 32-bit library on a 64-bit
>> windows machine.  But it doesn't look possible to build a 64-bit
>> library on a 32-bit windows machine?
>>
>
> Why not? It works for me without problems ...

Depends what is meant by 'build': I would pretty sure it does not mean 
'R CMD build': it might mean R CMD INSTALL --build.

What you can't do is test loading, so you need INSTALL --no-test-load. 
Multi-arch packages only test loading for the primary architecture, 
which is why you can install for ppc on Intel Mac OS X machines.  So 
you can INSTALL bi-arch packages on Windows on an i386 OS, but you 
cannot fully install a '64-bit package on a 32-bit machine on 
windows'.

Given that almst everybody who wants to distribute 64-bit packages 
nowadays wants bi-arch packages and needs access to a 64-bit OS for 
testing, we don't bother to test and document what other combinations 
might be possible.  (We don't make it easy for you to install a 
bi-arch R on a 32-bit OS either, to avoid end-user mistakes leading to 
increased support demands.)

-- 
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)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595