[R] Repeated use of dyn.load().

[Rolf Turner]

I am working with a function "foo" that explicitly dynamically loads a 
shared object library or "DLL", doing something like dyn.load("bar.so"). 
  This is a debugging exercise so I make changes to the underlying 
Fortran code (yes, I acknowledge that I am a dinosaur) remake the DLL 
"bar.so" and then run foo again.  This is all *without* quitting and 
restarting R.  (I'm going to have to do this a few brazillion times, and
I want the iterations to be as quick as possible.)

This seems to work --- i.e. foo seems to obtain the latest version of 
bar.so.  But have I just been lucky so far?  (I have not experimented 
heavily).

Am I running risks of leading myself down the garden path?  Are there 
Traps for Young (or even Old) Players lurking about?

I would appreciate Wise Counsel.

cheers,

Rolf Turner

-- 
Technical Editor ANZJS
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276

P. S.:

 > sessionInfo()
R version 3.4.3 (2017-11-30)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/local/lib64/R/lib/libRblas.so
LAPACK: /usr/local/lib64/R/lib/libRlapack.so

locale:
  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_NZ.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
  [3] LC_TIME=en_NZ.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_NZ.UTF-8
  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_NZ.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_NZ.UTF-8
  [7] LC_PAPER=en_NZ.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_NZ.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] misc_0.0-16

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
  [1] compiler_3.4.3       deldir_0.1-15        Matrix_1.2-10
  [4] spatstat.utils_1.8-0 mgcv_1.8-22          abind_1.4-5
  [7] spatstat.data_1.2-0  spatstat_1.55-0      rpart_4.1-11
[10] nlme_3.1-131         grid_3.4.3           polyclip_1.6-1
[13] lattice_0.20-35      goftest_1.1-1        tensor_1.5