Mon, 24 Jun 2013

Rcpp 0.10.4

A new version of Rcpp is now on the CRAN network for GNU R; binaries for Debian have been uploaded as well.

This release brings a fairly large number of fixes and improvements across a number of Rcpp features, see below for the detailed list.

We are also announcing with this release that we plan to phase out the RCPP_FUNCTION_* macros. Not only have they been superceded by Rcpp Modules and Rcpp Atributes (each of which has its own pdf vignette in the Rcpp package), but they also appear to be at best lightly used. We are for example not aware of any CRAN packages deploying them. To provide a smooth transition, we are aiming to keep them around for another twelve months, but plan to remove them with the first release after that time window has passed.

As before, we tested the release rather rigorously by checking against all packages I could (relatively easily) built on my server: this time it covered 91 of the 124 CRAN packages depending on Rcpp. As all of these 91 packages passed their checks, we do not expect any issues with dependent packages.

The complete NEWS entry for 0.10.4 is below; more details are in the ChangeLog file in the package and on the Rcpp Changelog page.

Changes in Rcpp version 0.10.4 (2013-06-23)

• Changes in R code: None beyond those detailed for Rcpp Attributes

• Changes in Rcpp attributes:

  • Fixed problem whereby the interaction between the gc and the RNGScope destructor could cause a crash.

  • Don't include package header file in generated C++ interface header files.

  • Lookup plugins in inline package if they aren't found within the Rcpp package.

  • Disallow compilation for files that don't have extensions supported by R CMD SHLIB

• Changes in Rcpp API:

  • The DataFrame::create set of functions has been reworked to just use List::create and feed to the DataFrame constructor

  • The operator-() semantics for Date and Datetime are now more inline with standard C++ behaviour; with thanks to Robin Girard for the report.

  • RNGScope counter now uses unsigned long rather than int.

  • Vector<*>::erase(iterator, iterator) was fixed. Now it does not remove the element pointed by last (similar to what is done on stl types and what was intended initially). Reported on Rcpp-devel by Toni Giorgino.

  • Added equality operator between elements of CharacterVectors.

• Changes in Rcpp sugar:

  • New function na_omit based on the StackOverflow thread http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15953768/

  • New function is_finite and is_infinite that reproduces the behavior of R's is.finite and is.infinite functions

• Changes in Rcpp build tools:

  • Fix by Martyn Plummer for Solaris in handling of SingleLogicalResult.

  • The src/Makevars file can now optionally override the path for /usr/bin/install_name_tool which is used on OS X.

  • Vignettes are trying harder not to be built in parallel.

• Changes in Rcpp documentation:

  • Updated the bibliography in Rcpp.bib (which is also sourced by packages using Rcpp).

  • Updated the THANKS file.

• Planned Deprecation of RCPP_FUNCTION_*:

  • The set of macros RCPP_FUNCTION_ etc ... from the preprocessor_generated.h file will be deprecated in the next version of Rcpp, i.e they will still be available but will generate some warning in addition to their expected behavior.

  • In the first release that is at least 12 months after this announcement, the macros will be removed from Rcpp.

  • Users of these macros (if there are any) should start replacing them with more up to date code, such as using Rcpp attributes or Rcpp modules.

Thanks to CRANberries, you can also look at a diff to the previous release 0.10.3. As always, even fuller details are on the Rcpp Changelog page and the Rcpp page which also leads to the downloads, the browseable doxygen docs and zip files of doxygen output for the standard formats. A local directory has source and documentation too. Questions, comments etc should go to the rcpp-devel mailing list off the R-Forge page

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