CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++rc
Shane
Shane

Reputation: 100194

Does an R compiler to C/C++ exist?

I'm wondering about the best way to deploy R. Matlab has the "matlab compiler" (MCR). There has been discussion about something similar in the past for R that would compile R into C or C++. Does anyone have any experience with the R to C Compiler (RCC) that was developed by John Garvin at Rice?

I've looked into it, and it seems to be the only project that worked on compiling R code into executable code. And as far as I can tell, it isn't still being used.

[Edit 1:]: To be clear, I know that there are C and C++ (and Java, Python, etc.) interfaces to R (rJava, rcpp, Rpy, etc.). I'm wondering about specific ways to compile and deploy R code without installing R in advance.

[Edit 2:]: John Mellor-Crummey tells me that they're still working on RCC and hope to make it available in 4 months or so (at the earliest). I'll update this further if I find anything else out.

Upvotes: 41

Views: 23341

Answers (5)

Tristan
Tristan

Reputation: 6906

I haven't used Garvin's package and don't know what is possible along those lines. However:

Typically people just write computationally intensive functions directly in C/C++/Fortran, after profiling to find the bottlenecks. See the RCpp interface or Calling C functions from R using .C and .Call for examples. The Scythe Statistical Library is also very nice for R users since the syntax/function names are similar.

Upvotes: 3

Dirk is no longer here
Dirk is no longer here

Reputation: 368439

I had forgotten about the Rice project, it has been a while. I think the operational term here is stated at the top of the project page: Last Updated 3/8/06.

And we all know R changes a lot. So I have only the standard few pointers for you:

  • Luke Tierney, who not only knows a lot about R internals but equally about byte compilers, has been working on such a project. Nothing ready yet, and it would still work in conjunction with the standard R engine.
  • Stephen Milborrow has the Ra extension to R that works with his just-in-time compiler package jit
  • my Introduction to High-Performance Computing with R tutorials (most recent tutorial slides from UseR! 2009) covers the profiling, compiling extentions, parallel computing with R, ... part, including Rcpp and and a bit about RInside.

In short: there is no way have what you desire specific ways to compile and deploy R code without installing R in advance. Sorry.

Edit/Update (April 2011): Luke's new compiler package will be part of R 2.13.0 (to be released April 2011) but not 'activated' by default which is expected for R 2.14.0 expected for October 2011.

Edit/Update (December 2011): Prof Tierney just release a massive 100+ page paper on the byte-code compiler.

Upvotes: 17

AST
AST

Reputation: 31

You may check out the P compiler which implements a subset of R. Especially, lists, matrices, vectors etc. are implemented as well as lsfit, chol, svd, ...

You can download a free version at

www.ptechnologies.org

It speeds up computations substantially.

Best,

AS

Upvotes: 3

Spacedman
Spacedman

Reputation: 94267

Why do people get the fear when deploying R? I'm fairly sure I've seen this question before.

Installing R is a piece of cake (you don't actually say which OS you care about). For Windows its one .exe. file, run it, say "yes" a few times and its done. I suspect the installer exe probably has flags for unattended installation too.

Upvotes: 6

Luke Tierney
Luke Tierney

Reputation: 491

A byte code compiler will be part of the R 2.13 release. By default it is not used in this release but it is available; I expect the 2.14 release will by default byte compile all base and recommended packages. The compiler::compile help page and the R Installation and Administration Manual give some more details.

Upvotes: 35

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