How to Build an R Package

When building an R package, you may encounter issues with performance due to lack of optimization flags. One way to address this is by adding custom compiler flags in your `.R/Makevars` file.

A good starting point for optimization flags is:

STDFLAGS = -g -O3 -pipe -Wall -march=x86-64-v3 -mtune=haswell

These flags can provide a boost in performance for some packages. To add custom compiler flags, you need to create or modify your `.R/Makevars` file.

Before installing R packages from source with compiled programs, make sure you have the necessary modules loaded. You can do this by running:

module load zlib bzip2 xz curl

For more complex installations, you may need to load additional modules. These modules are usually specific to certain R packages and their dependencies.

Once you've loaded the required modules, create or modify your `.R/Makevars` file to include custom flags. For example, you can add:

CPPFLAGS = -I$/lib

This will allow you to use specific libraries in your package.

In some cases, you may need to load additional modules in future RStudio Server sessions via the 'Additional modules to load' option on the app form. To do this, load the required modules, then enter R to open an R session and install packages.

If you're using the RStudio Server app via CARC OnDemand, use the terminal tab within RStudio to install packages listed below on the command line.

Some R packages require specific steps to install on CARC HPC clusters. These steps are detailed below:

For some R packages, certain modules need to be loaded to install the package (build dependencies) and the same modules may also need to be loaded in order to load and use the R package (run dependencies).

On Linux, R packages are installed from source by default. However, older R versions may require different steps.

The following instructions are based on the R 4.2.3 module:

module purge

By following these steps, you can successfully build an R package using the modules available on CARC HPC clusters.

R package build