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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

rvtk 0.2.0

New features

  • use_rvtk(): one-call downstream package setup. A new usethis-style helper that configures a downstream R package to link against VTK in one step. Running rvtk::use_rvtk() inside a downstream package project:

    1. Adds rvtk to the Imports field of DESCRIPTION.
    2. Writes src/Makevars with backtick-style Rscript invocations that query tools/configure.R for compiler and linker flags.
    3. Writes src/Makevars.win with the Windows-specific $(shell ...) syntax that does the same.
    4. Writes tools/configure.R that calls rvtk::CppFlags() and rvtk::LdFlagsFile() with a customisable list of VTK modules.
    5. Adds src/vtk_libs.rsp to .gitignore.
    6. Creates R/rvtk_imports.R with a minimal @importFrom rvtk tag so that R CMD check does not warn about an unused Imports entry.

    The modules argument (default: the standard I/O + core set) lets downstream developers restrict linking to only the VTK modules they need, avoiding unintended symbol drag-in (important on macOS static bundles).

    Uses cli for formatted console output (listed in Imports).

  • Linux x86_64 musl (Alpine Linux) support. The pre-built static fallback now provides a vtk-X.Y.Z-linux-musl-x86_64.tar.gz archive built inside an Alpine 3.22 container via docker run on the GitHub Actions runner (the container: job directive was not used because GitHub Actions’ Node.js runtime is glibc-linked and crashes on musl). The configure script detects musl by inspecting ldd --version output and automatically downloads the correct archive; no user action is required. This fixes installation on the CRAN musl check platform (x86_64-pc-linux-musl, Alpine Linux).

    The following extra CMake flags are set for the musl build to avoid X11 and rendering dependencies unavailable on the headless Alpine runner: -DVTK_USE_X=OFF -DVTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_RenderingOpenGL2=NO.

  • Linux aarch64 support. The pre-built static fallback now provides a vtk-X.Y.Z-linux-aarch64.tar.gz archive built on ubuntu-24.04-arm. The configure script detects the host architecture and downloads the correct archive automatically, so no user action is required.

Bug fixes

  • configure: fixed mktemp incompatibility with BusyBox. The temporary file for the pre-built archive download was created with a dotted suffix (/tmp/vtk-prebuilt.XXXXXX.tar.gz), which BusyBox mktemp rejects with Invalid argument. The suffix has been removed; the file is renamed internally before extraction.

  • modules argument for LdFlags() and LdFlagsFile(). Both linker-flag functions now accept a modules character vector that restricts linking to the named VTK modules (e.g. c("vtkIOLegacy", "vtkCommonCore")). When NULL (the default) all available modules are included, preserving backward compatibility.

    This is particularly important when using the pre-built static bundle on macOS: the bundle contains the full VTK (including rendering modules that reference _NSEventTrackingRunLoopMode from AppKit.framework). Without filtering, -Wl,-all_load forces those symbols into every downstream .so, causing dlopen() failures at R CMD check time for packages that do not actually use any rendering functionality. Downstream packages should pass only the modules they need:

    VTK_LIBS="$("${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript" --vanilla -e "rvtk::LdFlagsFile(
  path    = 'src/vtk_libs.rsp',
  modules = c('vtkIOLegacy', 'vtkCommonCore', ...)
)")"

Internal

  • New internal helper filter_libs() implements the module-name matching used by all three platform branches of read_vtk_conf().

rvtk 0.1.3

CRAN release: 2026-05-11

New features

  • Windows VTK discovery (configure.win rewritten). The package now searches for a system VTK installation on Windows before falling back to the pre-built libraries. Detection order:
    1. VTK_DIR environment variable.
    2. Rtools45 pacman (queries installed packages; never installs automatically).
    3. Common Rtools45 / MSYS2 prefixes (/x86_64-w64-mingw32.static.posix, /ucrt64, /mingw64, …).
    4. Automatic download of pre-built libraries (fallback — see below). Both static (.a) and shared (.dll.a import libs + DLLs) system installations are accepted.
  • Windows shared-DLL support (configure.win, tools/winlibs.R, R/vtk.R, R/zzz.R). Windows now fully supports shared VTK libraries:
    • System or pacman/MSYS2 installations that provide .dll.a import libs are accepted and used directly.
    • A pre-built shared-DLL build (vtk-X.Y.Z-shared-posix-x64.zip) is available as an alternative to the existing static build. Select it by setting VTK_LINK_TYPE=shared before installing rvtk (default is static).
    • VTK DLLs are staged in rvtk’s own inst/vtk-dlls/. An .onLoad hook prepends that directory to PATH via Sys.setenv() when rvtk is loaded, making the DLLs visible to all downstream packages that declare Imports: rvtk without any manual PATH manipulation. The original PATH is restored in .onUnload(). Downstream packages do not receive a copy of the DLLs — they piggyback on rvtk’s staged directory at run time.
  • build-vtk-libs.yml: new build-windows-shared CI job produces vtk-X.Y.Z-shared-posix-x64.zip alongside the existing static archive.

Bug fixes

  • Unix pre-built static libraries survive R CMD build (configure, R/vtk.R, cleanup). The pre-built archive is now extracted to inst/prebuilt/ so that headers and static libraries ship inside the installed package. read_vtk_conf() resolves the actual paths at run time via system.file("prebuilt", package = "rvtk"), mirroring the Windows approach and surviving R CMD build temp-dir cycles.

Internal

  • Removed dead variable lib_root from tools/winlibs.R (assigned but never read).
  • Removed dead variable all_libs_full from the Windows static branch of read_vtk_conf() in R/vtk.R (assigned but never read; lib_flags is built entirely from -l short names).
  • New CI workflow (.github/workflows/downstream-check.yaml) builds and checks a minimal downstream package against rvtk across all supported platform × VTK-strategy combinations (system, pre-built static, pre-built shared).

rvtk 0.1.2

Re-submission addressing CRAN reviewer feedback on v0.1.1.

Changes

  • DESCRIPTION: Software names ('VTK', 'Homebrew', 'pkg-config', 'Rtools45') are now consistently quoted with single quotes in the Title, Description, and SystemRequirements fields, per CRAN policy. Function calls such as rvtk::CppFlags() are no longer wrapped in single quotes.
  • CppFlags(), LdFlags(), LdFlagsFile(): Replaced cat() with writeLines() and added invisible() returns so functions behave in a more idiomatic R style while still allowing shell command-substitution capture.
  • tools/winlibs.R: The Windows VTK zip is now extracted to a temporary directory (tempfile()) before being copied into inst/windows/. This avoids writing intermediate files to the package source tree (home filespace) during installation.
  • Examples: All exported functions now have small, executable @examples entries. LdFlagsFile() writes to tempdir() in its example.
  • Tests: Test suite expanded to 100% line coverage of the non-platform- specific code paths on all platforms; Windows-specific branches (LdFlagsFile() response-file path, read_vtk_conf() Windows resolver) are exercised by the existing R-hub Windows CI jobs.

rvtk 0.1.1

The planned CRAN submission of v0.1.0 was cancelled after downstream package developers reported linker errors when building against the pre-built Windows VTK libraries. Two root causes were identified and fixed:

  1. Wrong toolchain. The Windows VTK zip was compiled with the Rtools45 UCRT64 toolchain (/ucrt64/bin/gcc), which uses a dynamic C runtime and emits DLL-import symbols (__imp_fseeko64, __imp_ftello64, …). However, R CMD INSTALL links R packages with the x86_64-w64-mingw32.static.posix toolchain, which is fully static. The mismatch caused undefined references to nanosleep64, ftime64, __imp_fseeko64, and __imp_ftello64. The GitHub Actions workflow now builds the Windows VTK zip with the x86_64-w64-mingw32.static.posix compiler, matching the toolchain that downstream packages use.

  2. Command-line length overflow. The full set of VTK -l linker flags exceeds the 8 191-character Windows command-line limit, causing the linker to silently drop flags at the end of the list. A new function LdFlagsFile(path) writes all flags to a response file and returns the short @path token that both GNU ld and LLVM lld support. Downstream packages should call LdFlagsFile('src/vtk_libs.rsp') from their configure / configure.win script instead of LdFlags().

Changes

  • New function LdFlagsFile(path): writes VTK linker flags to a response file and returns @path for use in Makevars. Preferred over LdFlags() on all platforms to avoid the Windows command-line length limit.
  • Windows pre-built VTK libraries are now compiled with the x86_64-w64-mingw32.static.posix toolchain (Rtools45), matching the toolchain used by R CMD INSTALL for CRAN packages.
  • Windows system libraries appended to PKG_LIBS reduced to -lgdi32 only; the UCRT64-specific -lwinpthread -lmingwex -lucrtbase flags are no longer needed because the static.posix sysroot resolves POSIX symbols internally.
  • README updated to document LdFlagsFile(), explain the rationale, provide a unified configure example valid on all platforms, and correct the Windows toolchain description.

rvtk 0.1.0

  • Initial CRAN submission.
  • Bundles VTK 9.5.2 pre-built static libraries (.a) for Windows (Rtools45 UCRT x64), macOS arm64, macOS x86_64, and Linux x86_64, distributed via GitHub Releases and built with GitHub Actions.
  • VTK discovery strategy on macOS and Linux (in priority order):
    1. User-supplied VTK_DIR environment variable.
    2. Homebrew (macOS only).
    3. pkg-config.
    4. Well-known system prefixes (/usr, /usr/local) (Linux only).
    5. Automatic download of pre-built static libraries from https://github.com/astamm/rvtk/releases as a fallback.
  • On Windows, pre-built UCRT64 static libraries are always downloaded automatically from https://github.com/astamm/rvtk/releases.
  • Windows limitation: netcdf and libproj are not available in the Rtools45 UCRT64 environment. The following VTK modules are therefore disabled in the Windows pre-built libraries: VTK_IONetCDF, VTK_IOHDF, VTK_GeovisCore, VTK_RenderingCore. Downstream packages requiring these modules cannot be built on Windows with rvtk’s pre-built libraries.
  • Downstream packages can retrieve compiler and linker flags via rvtk::CppFlags() and rvtk::LdFlags().