RcppArrayFire - in Windows

[JKcme]

Hi! I've been trying to install in Windows - and I realize this works under Linux at the moment, but I thought I might be able to build from source since I have RTools installed.

But I get this error:

• installing source package 'RcppArrayFire' ...

  ---

  WARNING: this package has a configure script
  It probably needs manual configuration

  ---

** libs

*** arch - i386
c:/Rtools/mingw_32/bin/g++ -std=gnu++11 -I"C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-3.4.3/include" -DNDEBUG -I"C:/Users/Documents/R/win-library/3.4/Rcpp/include" -O2 -Wall -mtune=generic -c RcppArrayFire.cpp -o RcppArrayFire.o
RcppArrayFire.cpp:23:27: fatal error: RcppArrayFire.h: No such file or directory
#include <RcppArrayFire.h>
^
compilation terminated.

Any ideas how I might proceed here? I'm not familiar with building from source, but I do use Rcpp. My ArrayFire install will run examples in Visual Studio with no problem. Thanks!

[rstub]

You could try to manually configure the package. The configure script tries to locate the ArrayFire installation. It then takes src/Makevars.in and R/flags.R.in as input and replaces @AF_INCLUDE@ and @AF_LIBS with appropriate values to produce src/Makevars and R/flags.R. You could try doing this by hand:

1. Copy src/Makevars.in and R/flags.R.in to src/Makevars and R/flags.R, respectively.
2. Replace @AF_INCLUDE@ in src/Makevars and R/flags.R with -I<arrayfire_root>\include
3. Replace @AF_LIBS@ in src/Makevars and R/flags.R with -L<arrayfire_root>\lib -laf

After that compilation might work. I am very interested in your results.

[rstub]

According to http://arrayfire.org/docs/using_on_windows.htm the ArrayFire installer sets an environment variable AF_PATH. Could you try to use the following as src/Makevars.win:

## enviorment variables for building R package
CXX_STD = CXX11
PKG_CXXFLAGS = -I../inst/include -I$(AF_PATH)/include
AF_LIBS = -L$(AF_PATH)/lib -laf
PKG_LIBS = $(LAPACK_LIBS) $(BLAS_LIBS) $(FLIBS) $(AF_LIBS)

[JKcme]

Hey Ralf! Thanks so much - I'll try to get to this today or over the weekend. I'll let you know how this goes.

[JKcme]

Hey Ralf - I tried the adjustments to src/Makevars.win by simply opening src/Makevars.in and copying your code as above and saving as Makevars.win in RStudio. (I put all of your project code into a new project called "ArrayFireWin". I've built Rcpp packages before, but not from source....so I'm of limited diagnostic help here since I've got little experience in this particular area...also, I did not make the adjustments to src/Makevars.in and R/flags.R. Should this be done as well? Thanks!)

PS: I can load ArrayFire in Visual Studio and run examples, so I believe my system Path is correct.

I got this error when I run Rcmd.exe:

==> Rcmd.exe build ArrayFireWin

* checking for file 'ArrayFireWin/DESCRIPTION' ... OK
* preparing 'RcppArrayFire':
* checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
* cleaning src
* installing the package to build vignettes
-----------------------------------
* installing *source* package 'RcppArrayFire' ...

**********************************************
WARNING: this package has a configure script
It probably needs manual configuration
**********************************************

** libs
c:/Rtools/mingw_64/bin/g++ -std=gnu++11 -I"C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-34~1.3/include" -DNDEBUG -``I"C:/Users/eXXXXX/Documents/R/win-library/3.4/Rcpp/include" -I../inst/include -IC:\Program Files\ArrayFire\v3/include -O2 -Wall -mtune=generic -c RcppArrayFire.cpp -o RcppArrayFire.o
g++.exe: error: FilesArrayFirev3/include: No such file or directory
make: *** [RcppArrayFire.o] Error 1

[JKcme]

Also, I did the above and then copied R/flags.R.in to R/flags.R. I then changed @AF_INCLUDE@ to -I$(AF_PATH)/include and changed @AF_LIBS@ to -L$(AF_PATH)/lib -laf. I also tried changing @AF_LIBS@ to simply AF_LIBS and still got the same error.

[rstub]

Thanks for your tests! The Problem are the spaces in $AF_PATH, which make cannot handle. For now we have to go back to explicitly setting the paths in src/Makevars:

## enviorment variables for building R package
CXX_STD = CXX11
PKG_CXXFLAGS = -I../inst/include -I"C:/PROGRA~1/ArrayFire/v3/include"
AF_LIBS = -L"C:/PROGRA~1/ArrayFire/v3/lib" -laf
PKG_LIBS = $(LAPACK_LIBS) $(BLAS_LIBS) $(FLIBS) $(AF_LIBS)

You can also make equivalent changes in R/flag.R, but that is of lower priority for now.

[rstub]

My ArrayFire install will run examples in Visual Studio with no problem.

This hints at an issue: The ArrayFire libraries are compiled with Visual Studio, but the Rtools toolchain uses gcc. The C++ ABIs are different for these two compilers. So I fear one either has to compile ArrayFire from source using gcc, or RcppArrayFire would have to use to C API instead of the C++ API, since the C ABIs should be compatible.

[JKcme]

Well, I think you're on to something here...I might have to build ArrayFire from source using gcc. I made the changes you suggested above and got the following (a partial readout....this is probably more problematic than we thought....):

** libs c:/Rtools/mingw_64/bin/g++ -std=gnu++11 -I"C:/PROGRA1/R/R-341.3/include" -DNDEBUG -`

I"C:/Users/e19665/Documents/R/win-library/3.4/Rcpp/include" -I../inst/include -

I"C:/PROGRA~1/ArrayFire/v3/include" -O2 -Wall -mtune=generic -c RcppArrayFire.cpp -o RcppArrayFire.o
In file included from C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/combaseapi.h:155:0,
from C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/objbase.h:14,
from C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/ole2.h:17,
from C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/wtypes.h:12,
from C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/winscard.h:10,
from C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/windows.h:97,
from C:/PROGRA~1/ArrayFire/v3/include/af/timing.h:16,
from C:/PROGRA~1/ArrayFire/v3/include/arrayfire.h:320,
from ../inst/include/RcppArrayFireForward.h:29,
from ../inst/include/RcppArrayFire.h:29,
from RcppArrayFire.cpp:23:
C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/objidlbase.h:864:18: error: macro "Realloc" requires 3 arguments, but only 2 given SIZE_T cb) = 0;

C:/Rtools/mingw_64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include/objidlbase.h:864:22: error: 'Realloc' declared as a 'virtual' field SIZE_T cb) = 0;
^
In file included from C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-34~1.3/include/R.h:91:0,
from C:/Users/eXXXX/Documents/R/win-library/3.4/Rcpp/include/Rcpp/r/headers.h:52,
from C:/Users/eXXXX/Documents/R/win-library/3.4/Rcpp/include/RcppCommon.h:38,
from ../inst/include/RcppArrayFireForward.h:26,
from ../inst/include/RcppArrayFire.h:29,
from RcppArrayFire.cpp:23:
C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-34~1.3/include/R_ext/RS.h:74:37: error: expected identifier before '(' token #define Free(p) (R_chk_free( (void *)(p) ), (p) = NULL)

[rstub]

I have raised the question of building ArrayFire with mingw in their slack community.

[JKcme]

Good idea - let's see where that goes. I may have a couple of people I can approach as well.

[rstub]

Response on slack was that it should work given that ArrayFire does not use any Visual C++ specialties on Windows. An alternative solution might be to build the R package using Visual C++, as it is done for LightGBM.

[JKcme]

Hmmm....not sure what to do now....lol....

[rstub]

I am not sure either. Good news is that I now have a Windows machine available and I intend to use it also for porting RcppArrayFire. I was already able to reproduce the errors you are getting.

[JKcme]

Hey Ralf, that's great - at least you've reproduced the errors! Let me know when you've made some progress and I'll definitely help test. - John

[JKcme]

Hey Ralf, by the way, I've switched to Windows10 - but this probably won't make much difference.