R devel - Feb 2006 - Utilizing the internet module

Hello all,

I'd like to utilize the R_Sock* functions from R_ext/R-ftp-http.h in my 
R package. The intent is to use these in conjunction with R_serialize() 
  to store R objects in a remote data store. I'm aware that version 
2.2.1 of "Writing R extensions" explains that these may be
undocumented
and unstable, but I have a couple of questions:

1) are they platform independent? I presume they are...

2) What's the appropriate way to link against them? On Linux x86, I can 
do this with the Makevars:

PKG_LIBS=$(R_HOME)/modules/internet$(SHLIB_EXT)

but that doesn't work on Mac OS X 10.3.9 powerpc G4:

gcc -bundle -flat_namespace -undefined suppress -L/sw/lib 
-L/usr/local/lib -o rmemcache.so rmemcache.o 
/Users/hornerjr/src/R-2.2.1/modules/internet.so -lcc_dynamic 
-L/Users/hornerjr/src/R-2.2.1/lib -lR
ld: /Users/hornerjr/src/R-2.2.1/modules/internet.so is input for the 
dynamic link editor, is not relocatable by the static link editor again

Thanks in advance,
-- 
Jeffrey Horner       Computer Systems Analyst         School of Medicine
615-322-8606         Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Jeffrey Horner wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'd like to utilize the R_Sock* functions from R_ext/R-ftp-http.h in my
> R package. The intent is to use these in conjunction with R_serialize()
>  to store R objects in a remote data store. I'm aware that version
> 2.2.1 of "Writing R extensions" explains that these may be
undocumented
> and unstable, but I have a couple of questions:
>
> 1) are they platform independent? I presume they are...
Only in sense that they have a common interface.
> 2) What's the appropriate way to link against them? On Linux x86, I can
> do this with the Makevars:
You can, but that is a module and not a library and so it does not work on 
MacOS X and may well not work on Windows (you would be lucky prior to R 
2.3.0).

I wonder why you need a C interface at all.  There is serialize() and 
socket connections are available at R level.  Below that, Rsockopen etc 
are exported from R itself and underly make.socket etc.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595