R ExamplesLesson 35Free preview

R Compiler

This lesson is part of R · All levels

Summary

This lesson reviews the environment of execution and byte-code compilation in R. Although historically R was a purely interpreted language, modern R systems include a built-in compiler package that translates R code into virtual machine bytecode. This significantly increases the speed of loop execution and complex functions.

Key points

The built-in 'compiler' package (official feature since R 2.13) compiles the R function into bytecode
The 'cmpfun()' function compiles the individual function into a bytecode closure
Just-In-Time (JIT) automatic compilation feature activated on modern R installations
Bytecode compilers maintain the full semantics of R language while accelerating iteration

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