CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++rboostrcpp
Ken Williams
Ken Williams

Reputation: 23975

Rcpp isn't finding Boost headers

I have a file called src/windows.cpp (windowing functions for vectors, nothing to do with MS Windows!) in an R package project. The top of the file looks like this:

// [[Rcpp::depends(BH)]]
// [[Rcpp::plugins(cpp11)]]

#include <Rcpp.h>
#include <algorithm>
#include <boost/algorithm/string/join.hpp>

using namespace Rcpp;

That doesn't seem to be enough to let it find the Boost headers - when I do a devtools::load_all(.) to trigger compilation, I see this build failure:

* installing *source* package ‘MyPackage’ ...
** libs
g++ -m64  -I/usr/include/R -DNDEBUG  -I"/home/rstudio/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/3.4/Rcpp/include" 
-I/usr/local/include  -std=c++11 -fpic  -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2
-fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic  -c windows.cpp -o windows.o
windows.cpp:6:43: fatal error: boost/algorithm/string/join.hpp: No such file or directory
 #include <boost/algorithm/string/join.hpp>
                                           ^
compilation terminated.

I've got BH installed, and the relevant headers are present:

> .libPaths()[1]
[1] "/home/rstudio/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/3.4"

> dir(file.path(.libPaths()[1], 'BH/include/boost/algorithm/string'))
 [1] "case_conv.hpp"             "classification.hpp"        "compare.hpp"              
 [4] "concept.hpp"               "config.hpp"                "constants.hpp"            
 [7] "detail"                    "erase.hpp"                 "find_format.hpp"          
[10] "find_iterator.hpp"         "find.hpp"                  "finder.hpp"               
[13] "formatter.hpp"             "iter_find.hpp"             "join.hpp"                 
[16] "predicate_facade.hpp"      "predicate.hpp"             "regex_find_format.hpp"    
[19] "regex.hpp"                 "replace.hpp"               "sequence_traits.hpp"      
[22] "split.hpp"                 "std"                       "std_containers_traits.hpp"
[25] "trim_all.hpp"              "trim.hpp"                  "yes_no_type.hpp"

It looks like the core problem is that the [[Rcpp::depends(BH)]] directive isn't adding the relevant Boost directory to the compiler directives, right? What should I look for in my setup that might be causing this?

I've added BH to the Imports: section of my DESCRIPTION file, is that correct/advisable?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 903

Answers (1)

Benjamin Christoffersen
Benjamin Christoffersen

Reputation: 4841

Have you added it to LinkingTo as mentioned here?

Further,

Note that while the Rcpp::depends attribute establishes dependencies for sourceCpp, it’s important to note that if you include the same source file in an R package these dependencies must still be listed in the Imports and/or LinkingTo fields of the package DESCRIPTION file. ... Packages that provide only C++ header files (and no shared library) need only be referred to using LinkingTo.

Upvotes: 4

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