The S Package System

Stephen Kaluzny
spk@insightful.com
Insightful Corp.

The latest release of S-PLUS includes a package system not unlike the
package system in R. A goal of the system is the creation of source
packages that can be installed both in R and S-PLUS. To achieve this
goal many new low level functions often used by R packages have been
added to S-PLUS and some existing functions now have additional
arguments for R compatibility. An R.h include file allows most R
package source code to be compiled under S-PLUS. A number of packages
from CRAN have been modified to run under the S-PLUS package system. I
will discuss the conversion process and describe areas that require
further work. I will also show our package compatibility checker that
examines a package source tree, identifying and possibly correcting
non-portable areas.