Hello,

Try having do_bar with this signature:

void do_bar(NumericVector data);

And my advice would probably also to have your C field either as a NumericVector. NumericVector is just a thin wrapper around the internal R data structure.

Having data members as direct pointers is dangerous and not a very C++ way of doing things.

If you want to learn about the STL, there are many books that cover it and plenty of online resources. I use this : http://cplusplus.com/reference/stl/. Using the STL is easier than dealing with pointers and stuff.

If your game is to pass down a double* to some api you use, you can use the begin method of NumericVector, this will give you the array pointer (as would REAL do on the underlying SEXP):

Here's an example:

require( Rcpp )
require( inline )

inc <- '

    // some third party api function
    double foo( double* data, int n){
        double sum = 0.0 ;
        for( int i=0; i<n; i++){
            sum += data[i] ;
        }
        return sum ;
    }
'

fx <- cxxfunction( signature( x_ = "numeric" ), '

    NumericVector x(x_) ;

    double sum = foo( x.begin(), x.size() ) ;

    return wrap( sum ) ;

', includes = inc, plugin = "Rcpp" )


I hope this helps, please send other Rcpp questions to the Rcpp-devel mailing list, where you have more chances to have replies. As an example, I don't follow R-devel as much as I would like to these days.

Romain

Le 07/05/11 10:41, soeren.vo...@uzh.ch a écrit :

Hello

Thanks again for help!

We have attached version info, code, and contents of 00install.out at the end 
of the message. The package can be found here:

http://sovo.md-hh.com/files/Foo.tar.gz

We had followed Dirks explanation in the Rcpp modules vignette and the presentation of 
Rcpp modules. The steps there and the ones Dirk listed here are basically the same, and 
all worked fine for us, so far. Even more, we have adapted some of the example code to a 
class Foo with two methods of interest, do_foo() and do_bar(). We have played around with 
various combinations of which method to expose in the module. In the end, exposing 
do_foo() works, R CMD CHECK does not complain. (Except for some namespacing error, but 
the same happens when I compile the example "simple", see below.)

Anyway, if we want the method do_bar() to expose, R CMD CHECK Foo stops with an error that says: "cannot 
convert ‘SEXPREC*’ to ‘double*’ in initialization". We *guess* that it is pointers as arguments in 
methods exposed that cause errors, because there is no wrappers "as()" and "wrap()" for 
pointers in Rcpp. Indee, we know that our crystal ball may fool us.

Summarising so far, principally, Rcpp modules works for us and coding with this 
module is very easy, especially with the help files provided in the package. 
However, Rcpp modules does not work if you want to expose methods with pointers 
as exposed methods' arguments (we assume). Yet, we have to use pointers, and 
rewriting the complete class is no option.

Recently, Dirk gave us the advice to have a look at STL containers. We have googled and found some 
information, and "looking at it" works fine, however, working with it is somewhat 
"beyond" our C++ skills. If the "STL things" *are* our *only* solution, could some reader 
here provide us with a specific solution to exposing do_bar()? Or what else can we do to (1) use the class as 
is (because it works with dyn.load as well as in other software outside R) and (2) incorporate things into 
Rcpp modules (or other code) anyway?

Thanks for all help!

Sören and Carlo


On 07.05.2011, at 02:39, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:

Sören and Carlo,

On 6 May 2011 at 19:24, soeren.vo...@uzh.ch wrote:
| Hello
|
| We have a C++ class with several methods that manipulate an object. How is
| it possible to create several instances of that class *from R* in the C++
| realm, which can then be accessed via a given name character?

Yes it is, and even somewhat easily given Rcpp modules as we tried to explain
over at the Rcpp-devel list when you asked there.  As a real quick
proof-of-concept, I did the following:


1) Make sure you have a recent Rcpp such as 0.9.3 or 0.9.4


2) Let Rcpp create a complete 'stub' of a working package with Rcpp modules
   support for you via the Rcpp.package.skeleton.function() with the
   module=TRUE argument:


   R>  library(Rcpp)
   R>  Rcpp.package.skeleton("simple", module=TRUE)
   Creating directories ...
   Creating DESCRIPTION ...
   Creating NAMESPACE ...
   Creating Read-and-delete-me ...
   Saving functions and data ...
   Making help files ...
   Done.
   Further steps are described in './simple/Read-and-delete-me'.

   Adding Rcpp settings
added RcppModules: yada
added Depends: Rcpp
added LinkingTo: Rcpp
added useDynLib directive to NAMESPACE
added Makevars file with Rcpp settings
added Makevars.win file with Rcpp settings
added example header file using Rcpp classes
added example src file using Rcpp classes
added example R file calling the C++ example
added Rd file for rcpp_hello_world
copied the example module
   R>


3) As you are keen to see that we get actual new objects, I am just doing
   the minimal code for by adding one for a new class member function:

    void showmyaddress() const { std::cout<<  "Address is "<<  this<<  
std::endl; }

   which I add to the class 'World' in file simple/src/rcpp_module.rcpp -- on
   line 32 if it matters.   I also add this line to the module definition in
   the same file on line 62:

     .const_method( "showmyaddress",&World::showmyaddress, "get *this ptr 
address")

   It doesn't matter that the method is const, you can do without const in
   both eg

    void showmyaddress() { std::cout<<  "Address is "<<  this<<  std::endl; }

    .method( "showmyaddress",&World::showmyaddress, "get *this ptr address")

   All that the code does is reveal its pointer to stdout.


4) Install it via

   $ R CMD INSTALL simple


5) Try it in R (and I first

   R>  library(simple)
   Loading required package: Rcpp
   R>  World
   C++ class 'World'<0x2b84940>
   Constructors:
       World()

   Fields: No public fields exposed by this class

   Methods:
        std::string greet()
              docstring : get the message
        void set(std::string)
              docstring : set the message
        void showmyaddress()  const
              docstring : get *this ptr address
   R>
   R>  w1<- new( World )
   R>  w1$showmyaddress()
   Address is 0x2748370
   R>
   R>  w2<- new( World )
   R>  w2$showmyaddress()
   Address is 0x2f960b0
   R>


   so w1 and w2 are indeed objects of class World which live in different
   memory locations.

This should show the mechanics.  This is somewhat easy -- especially if you
know some C++ where it then helps you from having to write boiler plate code.
If you are relatively new to C and C++, it can be a little tougher.  Either
way, to my mind it is shorter (and I'd argue, easier) than anything you could
do in plain C with the standard R API.

Good luck, and please bring Rcpp questions to rcpp-devel.

Regards, Dirk



| Symbolic example (we hope this illustrates our problem):
|
| // C++ side:
| class Foo{
| ...
| }
| // perhaps:
| void my_new_instance_wrapper("the_character") // plain to see that I am no 
C++ programmer ;-)
| {
|   static Foo "the_character"; // no return needed since we know the name of the 
instance = "the_character"
| }
|
| # R side:
| create_new_instance<- function(name){
|   dono_what_to_use_here(???, class)
| }
| # perhaps:
| create_new_instance<- function(name){
|   .C("my_new_instance_wrapper", as.character(name))
| }
|
| dyn.load("Foo")
| obj1<- create_new_instance("bar", class="Foo")
| obj2<- create_new_instance("baz", class="Foo")
| str(obj1)
| : character which can be manipulated using class methods in the C++ realm
|
| What we do not want: make simple copies of the object in R; use Rcpp modules (we tried 
that without success, pointers in constructors cause trouble); re-write our code such 
that C++ only "works off" heavy code, the rest is R-side. What we want: 
interfacing (from the R-side) instances of our class where the instances exist in the C++ 
realm.
|
| Either there is a function (or code) in R that solve this task, perhaps by 
returning pointers to instances of C++ classes. (Or there is a possibility to 
create a wrapper in C++ creating a new instance, the wrapper we do not know of.)
|
| Thanks for any notes, tips, experiences.
|
| Sören and Carlo



R: sessionInfo()

R version 2.13.0 (2011-04-13)
Platform: i386-apple-darwin9.8.0/i386 (32-bit)

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] Rcpp_0.9.4

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.13.0



/* ### Foo_mod.cpp ### */
#include<Rcpp.h>

class Foo
{
        int N, M, n, m;
        double dtau;
        double * C;
        double * t;
        double * s;
        double * par;
        double * D;
        double * ee;
        double * ff;
        double * S;
        int * y;
        public:
                Foo(int N_, int M_, int n_) : N(N_), M(M_), n(n_)
                {
                        D = new double[M];
                        ee= new double[N];
                        ff= new double[N];
                        S = new double[n+1];
                }
                ~Foo()
                {
                        delete[] D;
                        delete[] ee;
                        delete[] ff;
                        delete[] S;
                }
                // important methods
//              void set_experiment(int m, double *C, double *s); // original 
code
                void do_foo(int m);
                void do_bar(double *C);
                // other stuff
                void set_data(int n, int *y, double *t);
                void set_accuracy(int N, int M);
                void set_par(double *par);
                double loglikelihood(double *z);
};

//void Foo::set_experiment(int mm, double *CC, double *ss)
void Foo::do_foo(int mm)
{
        m=mm;
}
void Foo::do_bar(double *CC)
{
        C=CC;
}

RCPP_MODULE(mod_foo)
{
        using namespace Rcpp;
        class_<Foo>( "Foo" )
                .constructor<int,int,int>()
                .method("do_foo",&Foo::do_foo) // works
                .method("do_bar",&Foo::do_bar) // does not work!
        ;
}


### compile warning with the working version:
** checking whether the name space can be loaded with stated dependencies ... 
WARNING
Error: .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'Foo', details:
   call: value[[3L]](cond)
   error: failed to load module mod_foo from package Foo
Execution halted
A namespace must be able to be loaded with just the base namespace
loaded: otherwise if the namespace gets loaded by a saved object, the
session will be unable to start.
Probably some imports need to be declared in the NAMESPACE file.


### 00install.out
* installing *source* package ‘Foo’ ...
** libs
*** arch - i386
g++-4.2 -arch i386 -I/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/include 
-I/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/include/i386  -I/usr/local/include 
-I"/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/Rcpp/include"
   -fPIC  -g -O2 -c Foo_mod.cpp -o Foo_mod.o
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/Rcpp/include/Rcpp/traits/Exporter.h:
 In constructor ‘Rcpp::traits::Exporter<T>::Exporter(SEXPREC*) [with T = 
double*]’:
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/Rcpp/include/Rcpp/as.h:51:
   instantiated from ‘T Rcpp::internal::as(SEXPREC*, 
Rcpp::traits::r_type_generic_tag) [with T = double*]’
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/Rcpp/include/Rcpp/as.h:75:
   instantiated from ‘T Rcpp::as(SEXPREC*) [with T = double*]’
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/Rcpp/include/Rcpp/module/Module_generated_CppMethod.h:122:
   instantiated from ‘SEXPREC* Rcpp::CppMethod1<Class, void, 
U0>::operator()(Class*, SEXPREC**) [with Class = Foo, U0 = double*]’
Foo_mod.cpp:59:   instantiated from here
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/library/Rcpp/include/Rcpp/traits/Exporter.h:31:
 error: cannot convert ‘SEXPREC*’ to ‘double*’ in initialization
make: *** [Foo_mod.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package ‘Foo’

______________________________________________
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel




--
Romain Francois
Professional R Enthusiast
+33(0) 6 28 91 30 30
http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
http://romain-francois.com
|- http://bit.ly/hdKhCy : Rcpp article in JSS
|- http://bit.ly/elZJRJ : Montpellier Comedie Club - Avril 2011
`- http://bit.ly/fhqbRC : Rcpp workshop in Chicago on April 28th

______________________________________________
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

Reply via email to