Platforms
Windows
Windows is special, because the same repository is used for multiple architectures. Probably most people use 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 or 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 for both architectures, when installing from 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 isi386+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 toi386+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 bit.
- For
In summary, when compiling packages, we compile for both archs,
except if we are in a 64 bit R session and the platform is
x86_64-w64-mingw32
.