NEWS.md

In R.cache: Fast and Light-Weight Caching (Memoization) of Objects and Results to Speed Up Computations

Version 0.16.0 [2022-07-21]

New Features

• Now getCachePath() asserts that the user has write permissions to the cache path. If not, an error is produced. Previously, this check was only done when the cache folder did not exist and had to be created. Now it also checked pre-existing folders. For performance reasons, this check is only done once per R session.

Bug Fixes

• memoizeCall() would not always find previously cached results, because R's just-in-time (JIT) compiler could cause the internal state of the memomized function to change. Thanks to Tomas Kalibera for reporting on this and proposing the fix (already back in 2017).

Version 0.15.0 [2021-04-27]

Significant Changes

• The location of the root cache folder as introduced in R.cache 0.14.0 has been updated to match that of tools::R_user_dir(), which was introduced in R 4.0.0. On Linux, this was already the case in R.cache 0.14.0, whereas on macOS and MS Windows, the folder locations have changed slightly. If an old cache folder location is detected, then the user will be queried what action to take, i.e. abort, ignore the old folder, remove the old folder, or move the old folder to the new location. In non-interactive mode, the default action is always to ignore.

• The package will no longer ask for permission to create the cache folder as long as the cache folder is compatible with tools::R_user_dir().

Version 0.14.0 [2019-12-05]

Significant Changes

• Now R.cache uses a default cache path that adheres to the standard cache location on the current operating system, whereas in previous versions it defaulted to ~/.Rcache. On Unix, the 'XDG Base Directory Specification' is followed, which means that the R.cache folder will typically be ~/.cache/R/R.cache/. On macOS, it will be ~/Library/Caches/R/R.cache/. On modern versions of Microsoft Windows, environment variables such as LOCALAPPDATA will be used, which typically resolves to %USERPROFILE%/AppData/Local, e.g. C:/Users/alice/AppData/Local. If R.cache fails to find a proper OS-specific cache folder, it will fall back to using ~/.Rcache as previously done. Importantly, if ~/.Rcache already exists, then that will be used by default. This is done in order to not lose previously cached files. Users with an existing folder who wish to move to the new standard need to move or remove the ~/.Rcache folder manually.

New Features

• Add generateCache() to generate cache pathnames from a key without creating the cache file. This function was previously not exported.

• Option R.cache.rootPath now defaults to environment variable R_CACHE_ROOTPATH if it is set.

• evalWithMemoization() gained argument drop to specify which attributes to drop from the expression object. The default is to now drop any source-reference attributes.

Bug Fixes

• evalWithMemoization(expr) failed to memoize in knitr documents because although the same expr was specified they differed internally due to source-reference attributes.

• evalWithMemoization() used partial dollar name matching in one place.

Deprecated & Defunct

• Previously deprecated options R.cache::rootPath, R.cache::touchOnLoad, and R.cache::compress are now defunct. Likewise, environment variable R_CACHE_PATH and argument onError="print" for loadCache() are now defunct.

Software Quality

• Now a temporary cache root path is always set when running R CMD check, unless one is explicitly set via an option or an environment variable.

Version 0.13.0 [2018-01-03]

Significant Changes

• Package now formally requires R (>= 2.14.0) released October 2011.

New Features

• Now package gives a more informative error message in the rare cases it fails to create the cache root directory or fails to save a cache file.

• Updated loadCache() to recognize new file-format version 3 coming to R.

• Added options R.cache.enabled, which defaults to TRUE, for controlling whether loadCache() and saveCache() should read/write from cache or not. This provides an easy mechanism for temporarily disabling R.cache.

• Harmonized R.cache options to all have names prefixed with R.cache..

• clearCache() now prompts the user via readline(), which is always visible, i.e. it can neither be captured nor sinked.

Software Quality

• TESTS: Increased test coverage.

Deprecated & Defunct

• Using onError = "print" for loadCache() is deprecated and replaced by new onError = "message".

• Deprecated R.cache options R.cache::rootPath, R.cache::touchOnLoad, and R.cache::compress. Use R.cache.rootPath, R.cache.touchOnLoad, and R.cache.compress instead.

Version 0.12.0 [2015-11-12]

New Features

• Now all prompt and verbose messages are send to the standard error (instead of the standard output).

• SPEEDUP: Now memoizedCall() generates cache pathname only once.

Software Quality

• TESTS: Increased test coverage from 64% to 86%.

Deprecated & Defunct

• CLEANUP: Dropped argument verbose from memoizedCall().

Version 0.11.1 [2014-09-10]

Documentation

• Clarified in help that function calls that returns ("has value") NULL will not be cached.

Software Quality

• TESTS: Added package system tests for memoizeCall() and addMemoization().

Bug Fixes

• addMemoization() will no longer memoize an already memoized function.

Version 0.11.0 [2014-09-05]

Significant Changes

• Now package imports rather than suggests the digest package. This simplifies installation/usage of the package.

Version 0.10.0 [2014-06-10]

Software Quality

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.9.5 [2014-05-01]

New Features

• The textual prompt used to ask new R.cache users for approval on creating a persistent cache directory is now using the standard error (stderr) rather than the standard output (stdout). This lowers the risk for issues with report generators.

Version 0.9.4 [2014-04-26]

Software Quality

• Minimizing the use of ::.

Version 0.9.3 [2014-01-30]

Software Quality

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.9.2 [2014-01-13]

• All call to internal generateCache() with key = NULL would give a hard-to-understand error message. Now it's more informative.

Software Quality

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.9.1 [2013-12-21]

• Added arguments path and rootPath to getCachePath().

• Added argument pathname to saveCache().

Version 0.9.0 [2013-10-17]

Bug Fixes

• If the package was only loaded but not attached, the cache root path would default to ~/.Rcache/, which in turn could cause that path to be create without asking the user. For instance, R.cache::loadCache(list()) would do. Thanks to Kurt Hornik at Vienna University of Economics and Business for reporting on this.

Version 0.8.4 [2013-10-14]

Bug Fixes

• Adjusted package dependencies and NAMESPACE to work with the package versions available on CRAN.

Software Quality

• Now DESCRIPTION's Authors field matches Authors@R.

Version 0.8.3 [2013-10-03]

Software Quality

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.8.2 [2013-09-28]

New Features

• Now the R.cache Package object is also available when the package is only loaded (but not attached).

Version 0.8.1 [2013-09-15]

Software Quality

• Now only importing a minimal set of functions needed from the R.oo and the R.utils packages.

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.8.0 [2013-08-21]

Significant Changes

• Now R.utils is no longer attached ("loaded") - only imported.

Software Quality

• TESTS: Added system tests.

Version 0.7.4 [2013-08-20]

Software Quality

• Now explicitly importing one function from utils in NAMESPACE.

Version 0.7.3 [2013-08-18]

Software Quality

• Now clearCache() is exported (re-exported from R.oo).

Version 0.7.2 [2013-08-03]

Software Quality

• Bumped package dependencies.

Bug Fixes

• R.cache:::.assertDigest() called from within another package would give an error that packageVersion() of utils was not found.

Version 0.7.1 [2013-07-11]

Software Quality

• Updated the title and the description of the package.

Version 0.7.0 [2013-07-03]

New Features

• Now getChecksum() passes ... to digest(), e.g. argument algo.

Software Quality

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.6.10 [2013-05-25]

Software Quality

• Minor speedup of loadCache() - replaced an rm() call with NULL assignment.

Version 0.6.9 [2013-05-20]

Software Quality

• CRAN POLICY: Now all Rd \usage{} lines are at most 90 characters long.

• Bumped package dependencies.

Version 0.6.8 [2012-12-19]

New Features

• Utilizing new startupMessage() of R.oo.

Version 0.6.7 [2012-11-28]

New Features

• Added support for clearCache(..., recursive = TRUE).

Version 0.6.6 [2012-11-27]

Bug Fixes

• clearCache() would give error "object 'dirs' not found".

Version 0.6.5 [2012-11-18]

Significant Changes

• Package now only imports R.methodsS3 and R.oo, no long depends (attaches) them. It still needs to load R.utils.

• Now package exports a smaller set of the methods.

Software Quality

• ROBUSTNESS: Now package declares S3 methods in the namespace.

• Added internal .assertDigest(), which originates from aroma.core.

Version 0.6.4 [2012-10-16]

Significant Changes

• Package now imports R.methodsS3 and R.oo.

Bug Fixes

• ROBUSTNESS: No longer passing ... to NextMethod(), cf. R-devel thread 'Do not pass '...' to NextMethod() - it'll do it for you; missing documentation, a bug or just me?' on Oct 16, 2012.

Version 0.6.3 [2012-09-12]

Significant Changes

• Renamed the installed .Rcache/ directory to _Rcache/ to avoid R CMD check NOTEs.

Software Quality

• CRAN POLICY: Removed one last call to .Internal() for loading saved data. This could be done in a backward-compatible way using readRDS().

Version 0.6.2 [2012-03-20]

Software Quality

• CRAN POLICY: Dropped an explicit call to an .Internal() function.

Version 0.6.1 [2012-01-22]

New Features

• Updated the README that is copied to the .Rcache directory.

Version 0.6.0 [2011-12-30]

Significant Changes

• As before, the cache root path defaults to ~/.Rcache/. However, if it does not exists, then it is created when the package is loaded, but only after approval by the user (via a textual prompt). If not approved, or it is not possible to prompt the user (e.g. in a non-interactive session), then a session-specific temporary directory is used.

Version 0.5.3 [2011-12-29]

New Features

• Now getCachePath() and setCacheRootPath() add a README.txt file to the root path, iff missing. It explains why the directory structure exists, what created it, and that it is safe to delete.

Version 0.5.2 [2011-10-05]

Bug Fixes

• For R v2.13.0 only: Applying the same fix that was done for R v2.12.2 and before in R.cache v0.5.1.

Version 0.5.1 [2011-08-31]

Bug Fixes

• For R v2.12.2 and before: After adding support for compressed files in R.cache v0.5.0, we would get the 'Error in seek.connection(con, origin = "current", where = -5) : whence = "end" is not implemented for gzfile connections' in readCacheHeader() iff running R v2.12.2 or before. Thanks to Uwe Ligges (R core) for reporting on this.

Version 0.5.0 [2011-08-16]

New Features

• Added support for saving and loading compressed cache files.

• Now package uses packageStartupMessage() instead of cat().

Software Quality

• ROBUSTNESS: Now findCache() asserts that any identified cache file is really a file.

Version 0.4.3 [2011-07-21]

Documentation

• Clarified how argument dirs (in methods using it) specifies the subdirectory of the cache root directory.

Version 0.4.2 [2011-05-19]

New Features

• Now argument prompt for clearCache() defaults to TRUE iff interactive() is TRUE, otherwise FALSE.

Documentation

• Added a help page to clearCache().

Version 0.4.1 [2011-04-02]

New Features

• Now generateCache() utilizes a generic function getChecksum() to obtain the checksum. This makes it possible to customize how checksums are calculated for different classes of objects.

• Added a default getChecksum() which utilizes digest::digest().

• Added getChecksum() for the Object, which first clears the cache of the object and the calls the default ditto.

• Added trial version of evalWithMemoization().

Bug Fixes

• clearCache() would also report on subdirectories.

Version 0.4.0 [2011-02-14]

New Features

• Added trial versions of memoizedCall() and addMemoization().

Version 0.3.0 [2010-03-13]

Software Quality

• Added a NAMESPACE.

Version 0.2.0 [2009-10-16]

Bug Fixes

• In R v2.10.0 and newer, we would get an error reporting that internal function loadFromConn() does not exists.

Version 0.1.9 [2009-09-11]

New Features

• Added argument onError to loadCache(), to specify the action when an error occurs. The default used to be to print the error message (onError = "print"), but now it generates a warning ("warning"). The other alternatives are do silently ignore it, or to throw the error ("error"). Except for onError = "error", loadCache() always returns NULL if an error occurs.

Version 0.1.8 [2009-08-11]

New Features

• Now readCacheHeader() reports the "pathname" in error/warnings messages, if argument file refers to a file and the "description" if it refers to a connection.

Software Quality

• ROBUSTNESS: Added sanity check to readCacheHeader() testing that the read header identifier is non-empty. This results in a clearer error message that before.

• Renamed the HISTORY file to NEWS.

Version 0.1.7 [2008-02-27]

New Features

• Added option to updated the "last-modified" timestamp of cache files whenever they are loaded via loadCache(). This will help identified what cache files have not been used for a long time. To turn this on, use options("R.cache::touchOnLoad" = TRUE).

• Now error messages specifies the pathname, if available.

Bug Fixes

• The throw() for invalid identifiers was trying to put the connection object in the output and not the identifier.

Version 0.1.6 [2007-07-02]

New Features

• Now environments, in addition to lists, may be used as keys for generating cache names.

Software Quality

• Package passes R CMD check on R v2.6.0 devel. Minor mods.

Version 0.1.5 [2007-03-11]

New Features

• Added getCacheRootPath() to the help index page.

Software Quality

• Package passes R CMD check on R v2.5.0.

Version 0.1.4 [2007-03-07]

New Features

• Added getCacheRootPath() and setCacheRootPath() to specify where the root of the file path is located.

Version 0.1.3 [2007-01-24]

New Features

• Now saveCache() and loadCache() takes optional argument dirs for caching data to subdirectories of the root cache directory.

• Added setCacheRootPath() to set the root cache directory.

Version 0.1.2 [2006-05-25]

New Features

• Added argument pathname to loadCache() in order to load "unknown" cache files for which the key is unknown.

Bug Fixes

• Work around for not saving "promises" (non-evaluated arguments) in base::save(), which otherwise includes all of the surrounding environment if 'sources' is not evaluated/missing. For more details see code and my email to r-devel on 2006-05-25. Thanks to Brian Ripley for explaining what was going on.

Version 0.1.1 [2006-05-22]

Significant Changes

• Added header comment for file format > v0.1.

New Features

• Added readCacheHeader().

• Added detection of file format version.

Version 0.1.0 [2005-12-16]

New Features

• Using a special binary file format now. It allows you to check if cache is up-to-date to a source file. If not, the rest of the cache binary file is not loaded.

• Added loadCache() and saveCache() methods.

• Created.

R.cache documentation built on July 21, 2022, 5:11 p.m.