fibonacci.r

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#!/usr/bin/r

## this short example was provided in response to this StackOverflow questions:
## http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6807068/why-is-my-recursive-function-so-slow-in-r
## and illustrates that recursive function calls are a) really expensive in R and b) not
## all expensive in C++ (my machine sees a 700-fold speed increase) and c) the byte
## compiler in R does not help here.

## inline to compile, load and link the C++ code
require(inline)

## byte compiler
require(compiler)

## we need a pure C/C++ function as the generated function
## will have a random identifier at the C++ level preventing
## us from direct recursive calls
incltxt <- '
int fibonacci(const int x) {
   if (x == 0) return(0);
   if (x == 1) return(1);
   return (fibonacci(x - 1)) + fibonacci(x - 2);
}'

## now use the snipped above as well as one argument conversion
## in as well as out to provide Fibonacci numbers via C++
fibRcpp <- cxxfunction(signature(xs="int"),
                       plugin="Rcpp",
                       incl=incltxt,
                       body='
   int x = Rcpp::as<int>(xs);
   return Rcpp::wrap( fibonacci(x) );
')

## for comparison, the original (but repaired with 0/1 offsets)
fibR <- function(seq) {
    if (seq == 0) return(0);
    if (seq == 1) return(1);
    return (fibR(seq - 1) + fibR(seq - 2));
}

## also use byte-compiled R function
fibRC <- cmpfun(fibR)

## load rbenchmark to compare
library(rbenchmark)

N <- 35     ## same parameter as original post
res <- benchmark(fibR(N),
                 fibRC(N),
                 fibRcpp(N),
                 columns=c("test", "replications", "elapsed",
                           "relative", "user.self", "sys.self"),
                 order="relative",
                 replications=1)
print(res)  ## show result