Skip to content

Platforms

Windows

Windows is special, because the same repository is used for multiple architectures. Probably most people us 64 bit R on Windows, because that’s what RStudio starts by default. But we also need to make sure that people who need 32 bit R will have a way to install packages, without ruining the 64 bit installation.

Luckily, there are no packages on CRAN and Bioconductor currently that are 32 bit only. (There are a few that are 64 bit only.) In addition, 32 bit R currently installs the package both both architectures, when installing for source. (64 bit R-devel does the same currently, but this might change.)

In light of these, this is what we do: - The default platform is x86_64-w64-mingw32 on 64 bit R from R 4.2. It is i386+x86_64-mingw32 on 64 bit R before R 4.2. - The default platform is i386+x86_64-w64-mingw32 on 32 bit R. - The windows platform name is an alias to i386+x86_64-w64-mingw32. - When compiling a package from source, we’ll observe the requested platform name: - For x86_64-w64-mingw32 on 64 bit R, we compile 64 bit only. - For i386-w64-mingw32 on 64 bit R, we compile for both 32 bit and 64 bit. (There is probably no way to avoid using the current arch.) - For i386+x86_64-w64-mingw32 on 64 bit R, we compile for both 32 bit and 64. - For i386-w64-mingw32 on 32 bit R, we compile for both 32 bit and 64 bit. This is to avoid mistakenly messing up a 64 bit library. - For x86_64-w64-mingw32 on 32 bit R, we compile for both 32 bit and 64 bit. (There is probably no way to avoid using the current arch.) - For i386+x86_64-w64-mingw32 on 32 bit R, we compile for both 32 bit and 64.

In summary, when compiling packages, we compile for both archs, unless the platform is x86_64-w64-mingw32 and we are in a 64 bit R session.