R devel - Nov 2008 - Linking to headers and shared library in another package

Hi,

A package with some C code needs to use the headers and shared library
in another package during installation/compilation. The first one is
achieved through the LinkingTo option in DESCRIPTION. For the second a
Makevars file with

PKG_LIBS=$(R_HOME)/library/firstPkg/libs/firstPkg.so

was being used. Problem this is not portable if the firstPkg package is
not installed in the library folder inside R_HOME but lives somewhere else.

What is the best way for Makevars or configure to find where a package
lives? Or is there any other way to make sure the linking step finds
where the shared library is located?

Apologies if I missed something in the extensions manual, but my limited
experience with autoconf might have made me not notice it.

Many thanks,


Iago

Please review the latest version of 'Writing R Extensions'.  What is 
documented there has been tested with packages in different libraries, 
including none in $(R_HOME)/library.

Note however that on a Unix-alike linking even to 
$(R_HOME)/library/firstPkg/libs/firstPkg.so cannot work in general as that 
location is not in the ld.so search path when R is started and so the .so 
will not be located.

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008, Iago Mosqueira wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A package with some C code needs to use the headers and shared library
> in another package during installation/compilation. The first one is
> achieved through the LinkingTo option in DESCRIPTION. For the second a
> Makevars file with
>
> PKG_LIBS=$(R_HOME)/library/firstPkg/libs/firstPkg.so
>
> was being used. Problem this is not portable if the firstPkg package is
> not installed in the library folder inside R_HOME but lives somewhere else.
>
> What is the best way for Makevars or configure to find where a package
> lives? Or is there any other way to make sure the linking step finds
> where the shared library is located?
See the Windows examples in 'Writing R Extensions' (for this can be made
to work on Windows).
>
> Apologies if I missed something in the extensions manual, but my limited
> experience with autoconf might have made me not notice it.
>
> Many thanks,
>
>
> Iago
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
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Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
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