Rcpp 1.0.5 in two+ weeks: Please help test

With the current four-month release cycle, the next Rcpp release is due in July following the 1.0.4 release in March. Just prior to the 1.0.4 release I had asked this:

It would be particularly beneficial if those with “unsual” build dependencies tested it as we would increase overall coverage beyond what I get from testing against 1800+ CRAN packages. BioConductor would also be welcome.

but only on the rcpp-devel list, and only about a good week prior to the release.

I remain rather disappointed and disillusioned about what happened after 1.0.4 was released. Two PRs in that release were soon seen to have side effects on more ‘marginal’ test systems, precisely what added testing could have revealed. An additional issue arose from changes in R’s make system, which is harder to anticipate or test. Each and every infelicity was fixed within a day or so, and we always make candidate releases available—the current Rcpp as of this writing is 1.0.4.12 meaning twelve microreleases were made since 1.0.4. And those microreleases are always available for normal download and install.packages use via the Rcpp drat repository accessible to all. So it was truly troubling to see some, especially those with experience in setting up or running testing / ci platforms, pretend to be unable to access, install, and provide these for their own tests, or the tests of their users. It just doesn’t pass a basic logic test: it takes a single call to install.packages(), or, even more easily, a single assignment of an auxiliary repo. All told this was a rather sad experience.

So let’s try to not repeat this. If you, or maybe users of a build or ci system you maintain, rely on Rcpp, and especially if you do so on systems outside the standard CRAN grid of three OSs and the triplet of “previous, current, next” releases of R, then please help by testing. I maitain these release as a volunteer, unpaid at that, and I simply cannot expand to more systesm. We take reverse dependency check seriously (and I just run two taking about a day each) but if you insist on building on stranger hardware or much older releases it will be up to you to ensure Rcpp passes. We prep for CRAN, and try our best to pass at CRAN. For nearly a dozen years.

To install the current microrelease from the Rcpp drat repository, just do

install.packages("Rcpp", repos="https://rcppcore.github.io/drat")

That is all there is to it. You could even add the Rcpp drat repository to your repository list.

Rcpp has become successful because so many people help with suggestions, documentation, and code. It is used by (as of today) 1958 CRAN packages, 205 BioConductor packages, and downloaded around a million times per month. So if you can, please help now with some more testing.

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.