[ARROW-3758] [R] Build R library on Windows, document build instructions for Windows developers

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 0.14.0
• Component/s: R
• Labels: pull-request-available
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/20076
• Assignee: Neal Richardson
• Reporter: Wes McKinney
• Created: 11/Nov/18 19:44
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 07:29
• Resolved: 22/Jun/19 00:34

Description

The status quo for building the R package with the C++ library is a bit special (see procedure here) and requires that compilation happen with a specific toolchain for R. There is no guidance on how to get a successful build locally on Windows, and it's not covered by our CI so we are vulnerable to regression.

Goal for this ticket: recreate the environment from https://github.com/r-windows/rtools-backports in our Appveyor so that we can build and test R with C++ in continuous integration. Side effect of bringing the PKGBUILD configuration that the r-windows setup uses into our source control for easier release management. This should also get us closer to, perhaps arriving at, reproducible build steps for local Windows developers.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #4622