Develop R Packages using Rust

A framework is provided to develop R packages using 'Rust' < https://www.rust-lang.org/> with minimal overhead, and more wrappers are easily added. Help is provided to use 'Cargo' < https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/> in a manner consistent with CRAN policies. 'Rust' code can also be embedded directly in an R script. The package is not official, affiliated with, nor endorsed by the Rust project.

The Cargo Framework

The package complements Writing R Extensions (the official guide for writing R extensions) for those interested in developing R packages using Rust. It highlights idiosyncrasies of R and Rust that must be addressed by any integration and describes how to develop Rust-based packages which comply with the CRAN Repository Policy. The paper introduces the cargo framework, a transparent Rust-based API which wraps commonly-used parts of R's API with minimal overhead and allows a programmer to easily add additional wrappers.

Citation

To cite in publications, please use

David B. Dahl (2021), Writing R Extensions in Rust, arXiv:2108.07179 [cs.PL], URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07179.

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

  @Misc{,
    title = {Writing R Extensions in Rust},
    author = {David B. Dahl},
    year = {2021},
    eprint = {2108.07179},
    archiveprefix = {arXiv},
    primaryclass = {cs.PL},
  }