How to build rstan package?

Build and install package rstan

The files for rstan package is in folder rstan/ under the root folder of the repository. StanHeaders/ houses the folders which include the math library and Stan folder, which are git submodules of the repos for Stan. When the present working directory is rstan/, rstan can be built (and installed) using GNU make. For example, to build rstan package:

$ cd rstan 
$ ls
example  INSTALL.txt  makefile  R_Makevars  rstan  tests
$ make build
if test -d tmpstanlib; then ln -s ../../../tmpstanlib/ ./rstan/inst/include/stanlib; else ln -s ../../../../stan/lib ./rstan/inst/include/stanlib; fi
ln -s ../../../../stan/src ./rstan/inst/include/stansrc
R --vanilla CMD build rstan --md5  # --no-vignettes --no-manual
* checking for file ‘rstan/DESCRIPTION’ ... OK
* preparing ‘rstan’:
* checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
* cleaning src
* installing the package to process help pages
* saving partial Rd database
* creating vignettes ...OK
* cleaning src
* checking for LF line-endings in source and make files
* checking for empty or unneeded directories
Removed empty directory ‘rstan/inst/include/stanlib/eigen_3.2.0/unsupported/doc/snippets’
Removed empty directory ‘rstan/inst/include/stansrc/models/bugs_examples/vol2/biopsies’
Removed empty directory ‘rstan/inst/include/stansrc/models/bugs_examples/vol3/jama’
* adding MD5 file
* building ‘rstan_1.3.0.tar.gz’

After executing make build, file rstan#.##.##.gz_ should be created. This file is the rstan source package that can be installed using R's package installation approaches such as R CMD INSTALL. In addition, make install can be used here to directly install rstan.

$ make install

Now we have the rstan package in gzip form.

$ ls
example  INSTALL.txt  makefile  R_Makevars  rstan  rstan_1.3.0.tar.gz  tests

We can also use make check to call R CMD check on the newly created package.

$ make check
R --vanilla CMD check --as-cran rstan_1.3.0.tar.gz 

rstan unit tests

Besides some tests included in rstan package, some external tests are in folder rstan/tests/, which is also shown above. The tests defined there can be run after rstan is installed:

$ cd tests/
$ Rscript runRunitTests.R 

Release rstan (for rstan maintainers/developers)

Currently, the source package for rstan is at rstan.org. So to release a new version of rstan, we need to do the following:

• upload the gzip package of the new version
• update file PACKAGES and PACKAGES.gz with the new version number.