R devel - Jun 2014 - Is it possible to make install.packages compile source code on Unix but use shipped binary on Windows?

Hi,

is it possible to make install.packages install a source package by
compiling it on Unix, but skip compilation and use a pre-built windows
binary (shipped in exec/) if installing on Windows?

The package should be installable on Windows machines that do not have
Rtools installed. This is to make the update process easier for users,
because the C++ code does not change often, meaning that I can just
send source packages built on Linux, with a binary executable built
once in a while on win-builder.

Note that this is for a package that is not meant for CRAN, so no
policy issue here.

Thank you.

Bests,
Renaud

On 13/06/2014 11:10, Renaud Gaujoux wrote:
> Hi,
>
> is it possible to make install.packages install a source package by
> compiling it on Unix, but skip compilation and use a pre-built windows
> binary (shipped in exec/) if installing on Windows?
A 'pre-built windows binary' of what?

You can easily ship a DLL or .exe for use on Windows: just make use of 
configure.win and/or Makefile.win.  If you have a Makefile.win it will 
override the normal procedures for directory src.  OTOH, shipping 
something in exec will be installed everwhere.

Watch out for sub-architectures: 'Windows' is in fact two platforms.  We
have over the years seen a lot of problem with people shipping 64-bit 
Windows binaries: 32-bit Windows does not recognize those.
> The package should be installable on Windows machines that do not have
> Rtools installed. This is to make the update process easier for users,
> because the C++ code does not change often, meaning that I can just
> send source packages built on Linux, with a binary executable built
> once in a while on win-builder.
>
> Note that this is for a package that is not meant for CRAN, so no
> policy issue here.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Bests,
> Renaud


-- 
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)
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