[R] dyn.load() error: bad external relocation length

[Walton A. Green]

R-helpers,

Is there an easy way to call an external (C) program using .C or .Call 
without including the code in a package. I know how to do it using 
system(), but that doesn't seem to be a permanent or portable solution. 
Initially I tried:

.Call('filepath.to.c.function', arg1)

and got this error:

Error in .Call("filepath.to.c.function", "arg1",  : 
	"C" function name not in load table

So read the section on foreign language interfaces in the Writing R 
Extensions manual but when I tried:

dyn.load('filepath.to.c.function')

I got:

Error in dyn.load(x, as.logical(local), as.logical(now)) : 
	unable to load shared library 'filepath.to.c.function':
  dlopen(filepath.to.c.function, 6): bad external relocation length

Do you need to run R_registerRoutines before dyn.load()? I couldn't find 
any mention of this error on the web....

Walton

platform powerpc-apple-darwin7.9.0
arch     powerpc                  
os       darwin7.9.0              
system   powerpc, darwin7.9.0     
status                            
major    2                        
minor    1.1                      
year     2005                     
month    06                       
day      20                       
language R