libR-sys

Low-level R library bindings

Installation

To build this library and test that everything is working as expected, run the following two commands in the library's top-level directory:

cargo build
cargo test

The build script has the following two dependencies:

1. R: It needs to be installed and available in the search path.
2. libclang: Depending on your operating system, you may need to set the LIBCLANG_PATH environment variable or add llvm-config to your search path.

Linux-specific instructions

Set LIBCLANG_PATH to the lib directory of your llvm installation. E.g., LIBCLANG_PATH=/usr/lib/llvm-3.9/lib.

Windows-specific instructions

Ensure the preferred R binaries, are part of the PATH, e.g. C:/R/R-4.0.2/bin/x64. For information on how to add environment variables on Windows, see here.

Add the mingw toolchains that are used to build R:

rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
rustup target add i686-pc-windows-gnu

The default toolchain must be (stable|beta|nightly)-gnu, e.g. to set the default toolchain to be nightly mingw:

rustup default nightly-gnu

Install MSYS2. Using scoop it is done by

scoop install msys2

To complete the installation, run msys2 once, then restart the terminal.

Run msys2 again, and install Clang and mingw-toolchain via

pacman -S --noconfirm mingw-w64-x86_64-clang mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
pacman -S --noconfirm mingw32/mingw-w64-i686-clang mingw-w64-i686-toolchain

Add environment variable LIBCLANG_PATH with the value pointing to where the clang binaries are placed. If scoop was used then the path would be: %USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps\msys2\current\mingw64\bin.

Then from now on, in order to build this, use:

mingw64
cargo build
cargo test

In order to build it without having to enter a mingw64/mingw32 shell, then add these paths to PATH:

%USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps\msys2\current\usr\bin
%USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps\msys2\current\mingw64\bin # change this to mingw32

Mac-specific instructions

Install llvm-config via homebrew with:

brew install llvm

Add it to your search path via:

echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/llvm/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

If you want to compile libR-sys from within RStudio, you may also have to add the following line to your .Renviron file:

PATH=/usr/local/opt/llvm/bin:${PATH}