Building R

1) Environment variables

  • We have environment variables defining paths to directories for building R and storing the source code.
  • BUILDDIR defines the build directory: /workspaces/r-dev-env/build/r-devel.
  • TOP_SRCDIR defines the source directory: /workspaces/r-dev-env/svn/r-devel

  • The environment variables are set in the codespace image and are available when the codespace starts.

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2) svn checkout

  • The svn checkout command lets us create a local copy of a specific tag/branch of a repository.
  • We can check out the latest version of the trunk (the main branch) of the R sources to $TOP_SRCDIR as follows: 
    svn checkout https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/ $TOP_SRCDIR

  • Output : We get file structure something like this after checking out R source code from R svn repository.

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3) Download recommended packages for R

To build R with the recommended packages, we need to run the tools/rsync-recommended script from the source directory to download the source code for these packages: 

$TOP_SRCDIR/tools/rsync-recommended
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4) Change to the build directory

  • To keep the source directory clean, we change to a build directory to configure and build R.

  • First create the directory specified by the BUILDDIR environment variable. 

    mkdir -p $BUILDDIR

  • Then we can change directory from root to the build directory. 

    cd $BUILDDIR

5) Configure the build

  • After we change directory, we must run the configure script from the source directory. This step takes ~1 minute on the codespace. 

    $TOP_SRCDIR/configure --with-valgrind-instrumentation=1

    Note

    The --with-valgrind-instrumentation option is set to 1 for effective use of valgrind. See the Using valgrind section of the R-admin manual for more information.

  • The configure cmd prepares for building R, creating files and folders inside the BUILDDIR directory.

  • Output : We get file structure something like this after using configure command.

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6) Build R

Having configured R, we run make to build R. This take 5-10 minutes on the codespace. 

make
7) Check R

Check that the build of R passes R's standard checks: 

make check
This takes a couple of minutes in the codespace. The check will stop with a error message if any of the tests fail. If this happens, see SVN Help for how to revert to a version that passes check.

8) Make R terminals use the built R

Run the which_r script to set which R to use for R terminals in VSCode. When prompted, enter the number corresponding to r-devel 

which_r

Which version of R should be used in new R terminals?
  1. R 4.4.0 (release version built into this container)
  Additional R builds available:
    2. r-devel
Enter the number corresponding to the selected version:
This means that new R terminals will use the version of R you have just built!1

9) Make contributions

  • After having built the current development version of R, we can now make changes to the source code and contribute to the project.
  • Follow the R Contribution Workflow tutorial to learn how to do this.

  1. To switch back to the release version, run which_r and type 1. The selected version is saved in the VSCode settings, so will be saved when you stop and restart the codespace. ↩