RcppSimdJson 0.0.2: First Update!

Following up on the initial RcppSimdJson release, a first updated arrived on CRAN yesterday.

RcppSimdJson wraps the fantastic simdjson library by Daniel Lemire which truly impressive. Via some very clever algorithmic engineering to obtain largely branch-free code, coupled with modern C++ and newer compiler instructions, it results in persing gigabytes of JSON parsed per second which is quite mindboggling. I highly recommend the video of the recent talk by Daniel Lemire at QCon (which was also voted best talk). The best-case performance is ‘faster than CPU speed’ as use of parallel SIMD instructions and careful branch avoidance can lead to less than one cpu cycle use per byte parsed.

This release syncs the simdjson headers with upstream, and polishes the build a little by conditioning on actually having a C++17 compiler rather than just suggesting it. The NEWS entry follows.

Changes in version 0.0.2 (2020-02-21)

• Sychronized with upstream (Dirk in #4 and #5).

• The R side of validateJSON now globs the file argument, expanding symbols like ~ appropriately.

• C++ code in validateJSON now conditional on C++17 allowing (incomplete) compilation on lesser systems.

• New helper function returning value of __cplusplus macro, used in package startup to warn if insufficient compiler used.

For questions, suggestions, or issues please use the issue tracker at the GitHub repo.

If you like this or other open-source work I do, you can now sponsor me at GitHub. For the first year, GitHub will match your contributions.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.