Dear R-devel,
I think the following describes a bug in R. It seems to be associated with
dyn.load() and/or something that happens at start-up. I have not filed a
bug report yet (because I doubt my ability to rule out other explanations)
but would happily do so if requested.
Observation:
If two dlls are loaded as a result of dyn.load() calls in .Rprofile,
subsequent calls to dyn.load() issued at the R prompt result in loss of
symbol names in the other dll (although not until one tries
re-dyn.load()ing the second dll; re-dyn.load()ing just one of them works
OK). This has occurred only since installing R 2.1.0.
Example:
Contents of file dummy1.c:
---------------------------
#include <R.h>
#include <Rdefines.h>
SEXP dummy1() {
Rprintf("this is dummy1() in C\n") ;
return R_NilValue ;
}
---------------------------
Contents of file dummy2.c
-------------------------
#include <R.h>
#include <Rdefines.h>
SEXP dummy2() {
Rprintf("this is dummy2() in C\n") ;
return R_NilValue ;
}
-------------------------
Files dummy1.so and dummy2.so are present in the directory as a result
of
system("R CMD SHLIB dummy1.c")
system("R CMD SHLIB dummy2.c")
in a previous R session.
Contents of file .Rprofile:
--------------------
dyn.load("dummy1.so")
dyn.load("dummy2.so")
--------------------
I start R, with this .Rprofile present. Although re-dyn.load()ing of the
first dll seems unproblematic, re-dyn.load()ing the other dll and all
subsequent dyn.load()s seem to result in loss of symbols in the other dll:
Type 'q()' to quit R.
> options(STERM='iESS', editor='gnuclient -q')
> ls(all=TRUE)
character(0)> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] TRUE> dyn.load("dummy1.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] TRUE> dyn.load("dummy1.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] TRUE> dyn.load("dummy2.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] FALSE
[1] TRUE> dyn.load("dummy1.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] FALSE>
Now there is no .Rprofile. There is no problem:
Type 'q()' to quit R.
> options(STERM='iESS', editor='gnuclient -q')
> ls(all=TRUE)
character(0)> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] FALSE
[1] FALSE> dyn.load("dummy1.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] FALSE> dyn.load("dummy2.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] TRUE> dyn.load("dummy1.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] TRUE> dyn.load("dummy2.so")
> is.loaded("dummy1") ; is.loaded("dummy2")
[1] TRUE
[1] TRUE>
The mailing lists contain some reports, for R 2.1.0, mentioning the error
messages that result, such as
> .Call("dummy1", PACKAGE="dummy1")
Error in .Call("dummy1", PACKAGE = "dummy1") :
"C" function name not in DLL for package 'dummy1'
One example is at
http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/05/04/2928.html
I would be happy to file a proper bug report, if that is deemed
appropriate. I didn't see anything that was obviously relevant in the news
file for R 2.1.0. Sorry if I am missing something obvious here.
Thanks very much,
Dan
> version
_
platform i386-pc-linux-gnu
arch i386
os linux-gnu
system i386, linux-gnu
status
major 2
minor 1.0
year 2005
month 04
day 18
language R>
Debian "sarge" linux
