R-beta: loadable modules

[Thomas Lumley]

On Fri, 29 May 1998, Jean Meloche wrote:

> I want to write a C function that should return
> an object of unknown structure at the time of the
> invocation.
> 
> In particular, I'd like to
> 
> 1- return a string of unknown length
> 2- a vector or a matrix of unknown dims and of
>    unknown element type
> 3- a data frame
> 
> Is any of that possible? Are there examples?
> Which R functions should I call to create such
> objects?
 
It's possible, but tricky.  You need to call R code that creates the
objects _after_ you know what they look like but _before_ you pass them
back.  One way to do this for an array is as follows
- Call C code to create the array, storing it in a variable declared as
static, so that it won't go away when you return to R. Use malloc, rather
than R_alloc so that it won't get tidied up by R.
- Return the dimensions and type of the array to R
- From R, call another C function, with one argument being a suitable
array
- This C function just returns the array.

You could call the internal R functions that create objects, bypassing the
middle two steps. This would be a lot harder to program, as there isn't
much documentation (read the source), and might break in future versions
of R. It would be more memory-efficient, though.


Thomas Lumley
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