[Rd] Rtools and MinGW

[Thomas Mang]

Hi,

I have R version 2.8.1 and Rtools 28 installed (as you might guess, set 
up years ago). In Rtools the MinGW GCC 4.2 compiler toolset is included.

For my regular C/C++ programs I have also installed, separately, the 
full MinGW bundle with the latest GCC 4.5 compiler tools. So I have two 
g++ variants on the same machine.

According to the Rtools documentation, the bin directory of it shall be 
in the system PATH, and very early in the PATH (first elements). 
Presently the bin directory of the Rtools-MinGW is front.
Fine but Ok for my daily C++ work I actually prefer that the regular 
(non-Rtools) MinGW compiler is invoked, hence I would prefer putting 
that in front. But then, of course, invoking g++ from R development 
would refer to the regular MinGW compiler toolset. When I do R 
development, would you expect it to cause problems if actually the 
regular MinGW (gcc 4.5) is invoked, and not the version that came 
bundled with Rtools (4.2) ? Or is this something I should better stay 
away from ?
If not likely to work, what would you suggest to do instead ?

thanks and best,
Thomas