Is there a way to enable multithreading while installing/compiling packages?

ntrs · February 22, 2018, 10:39pm

Hi,
I am trying to make Rstudio using multiple threads/cores when installing a new package. all of my search results are skewed and relating to the multicore package. Is there a way to do this?
I am running Linux if that helps.

Thanks

kevinushey · February 23, 2018, 4:18am

Do you mean during compilation of code used by the package? If so, you can set the MAKEFLAGS variable, e.g. in your ~/.R/Makevars:

MAKEFLAGS = -j4

cderv · February 24, 2018, 9:48am

I am curious if the Ncpus argument in install.packages does the same or differently ?

Ncpus
the number of parallel processes to use for a parallel install of more than one source package. Values greater than one are supported if the make command specified by Sys.getenv("MAKE", "make") accepts argument -k -j Ncpus.

source

ntrs · February 24, 2018, 5:46pm

@kevinushey's suggestion did not work for some reason. Sys.getenv() would show the variable MAKEFLAGS set but it would not go into effect.

I ended up changing the MAKE variable in my Renviron file from make to make -j4 and that did it.

kevinushey · February 24, 2018, 7:04pm

My understanding is that Ncpus allows one to install multiple packages in parallel, while the change I described (MAKEFLAGS = -j4 in ~/.R/Makevars) is specifically for the parallel compilation of C/C++ sources within a single package.