IDE / setup for package development with C++ code integrated

Question

I'm trying to get a grip on C++/Rcpp as an extension to R for heavy computational tasks. Ultimately, these C++ libs should be integrated in a package, and therefor I'm looking for a setup / combination of tools / IDE that I would need to work easily. I know much is taste dependent, but still it would be nice to know my options before choosing.

So : when you develop R packages with C++ libs, what is the setup you work with?

• do you use the same editor / IDE for R and C++ and which one (or which ones) ?
• are there extra tools (apart from Rtools) that are important to get ?
• are there tweaks in the general setup that are important to know or speed up the process considerably?

Sorry if this question has been asked before. I found a list of all editors for R, but nothing specifically directed towards developing of packages including C++ code. Any hints or tips are really appreciated.

Edit : platform is Windows, but I can move to Linux without problems (dual boot, only thing keeping me from using ubuntu is the lack of a decent driver for my old card/old screen combination)

Answer 1

Eclipse + statet if you want to join in us in the modern world :)

Answer 2

I'm of course fully in favour of more Rcpp work :)

As for your questions, and in order:

• same editor (Emacs) which makes for nice consistency on either platform I use (mostly Linux, occassionally Windows); for the record I have also spoke out in favour of the qtcreator IDE which is pretty nice on Linux and Windows (but doesn't do R).
• no, on Linux it all comes ready made (and yes, on Windows you do need Rtools) ...
• not really -- you probably already know about inline which is good for testing R/C++ code snippets.

Edit: So in a way, this is really no different from normal R / C / C++ / Fortran development. And in that case I usually refer to R FAQ Section 6 which is devoted entirely to R and Emacs :) With that said, setting Emacs up for C++ work is not obvious and there are a number of questions and posts here. I do not use any particular class browser but there are some, as well as approaches to auto-completion of types etc.

Answer 3

You will want an editor that can handle multiple languages, R, C+, maybe Makefiles, etc. Since you mention Rtools it sounds like you are on Windows. I would suggest Notepad++ it handles R, C++, and a whole lot of other languages. Plus you can setup custom command through NppExec to build the package more easily. I have developed a few packages that make heavy use of C/C++ using Notepad++.

Answer 4

I just wrote a cmake script to generate Eclipse CDT project for developing Rcpp package.

Moreover, cmake might be able to generate CodeBlocks or KDevelop3 projects, but I have not checked these features, yet.

Environment

• CMake >= 2.8.7
• Eclipse >= 3.7
• Eclipse CDT >= 1.4.2
• R >= 2.15
• Rcpp >= 0.10

Configuration

• Download FindLibR.cmake from github provided by Rstudio

• Generate Rcpp package, for example

  library(Rcpp)
  Rcpp.package.skeleton("RcppPackage")
  

• Put the following script (or download it from gist), named CMakeLists.txt, in the generated folder such as RcppPackage in the previous example.

  cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)
  project(RcppPackage)
  find_package(LibR)
  if(${LIBR_FOUND})
  else()
      message(FATAL_ERROR "No R...")
  endif()
  message(STATUS ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR})
  execute_process(
      COMMAND ${LIBR_EXECUTABLE} "--slave" "-e" "stopifnot(require('Rcpp'));cat(Rcpp:::Rcpp.system.file('include'))"
      OUTPUT_VARIABLE LIBRCPP_INCLUDE_DIRS
  ) 
  include_directories(BEFORE ${LIBR_INCLUDE_DIRS})
  message(STATUS ${LIBR_INCLUDE_DIRS})
  include_directories(BEFORE ${LIBRCPP_INCLUDE_DIRS})
  message(STATUS ${LIBRCPP_INCLUDE_DIRS})
  add_custom_target(RcppPackage ALL
      COMMAND find ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR} -name "*.o" -exec rm "{}" "\;"
      COMMAND find ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR} -name "*.so" -exec rm "{}" "\;"
      COMMAND ${LIBR_EXECUTABLE} "--slave" "-e" "\"stopifnot(require(roxygen2));roxygenize('${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}',roclets=c('rd','collate','namespace'))\""
      COMMAND ${LIBR_EXECUTABLE} CMD INSTALL "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}")
  

• Customize roxygenize and R CMD INSTALL in CMakeLists.txt

• Generate project with cmake

  mkdir build # don't create subdirectory of RcppPackage
  cd build
  cmake -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" <path to RcppPackage> -DCMAKE_ECLIPSE_GENERATE_SOURCE_PROJECT=TRUE
  

• Open eclipse and import project from build(See cmake-eclipse-cdt for example). After indexing, enjoy several convenient features provided by Eclipse CDT such as tracing and autocomplete.

• You can build the project which will be converted to R CMD INSTALL or anything in the CMakeLists.txt.