Package ‘cpp11’
May 6, 2026
Title A C++11 Interface for R's C Interface
Version 0.5.5
Description Provides a header only, C++11 interface to R's C
interface. Compared to other approaches 'cpp11' strives to be safe
against long jumps from the C API as well as C++ exceptions, conform
to normal R function semantics and supports interaction with 'ALTREP'
vectors.
License MIT + file LICENSE
URL [Link] [Link]
BugReports [Link]
Depends R (>= 4.0.0)
Suggests bench, brio, callr, cli, covr, decor, desc, ggplot2, glue,
knitr, lobstr, mockery, progress, rmarkdown, scales, Rcpp,
testthat (>= 3.2.0), tibble, utils, vctrs, withr
VignetteBuilder knitr
Config/Needs/website tidyverse/tidytemplate
Config/testthat/edition 3
Config/Needs/cpp11/cpp_register brio, cli, decor, desc, glue, tibble,
vctrs
Encoding UTF-8
RoxygenNote 7.3.3
NeedsCompilation no
Author Davis Vaughan [aut, cre] (ORCID:
<[Link]
Jim Hester [aut] (ORCID: <[Link]
Romain François [aut] (ORCID: <[Link]
Benjamin Kietzman [ctb],
Posit Software, PBC [cph, fnd]
Maintainer Davis Vaughan <davis@[Link]>
Repository CRAN
Date/Publication 2026-05-06 14:40:12 UTC
1
2 cpp_register
Contents
cpp_register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
cpp_source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
cpp_vendor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Index 7
cpp_register Generates wrappers for registered C++ functions
Description
Functions decorated with [[cpp11::register]] in files ending in .cc, .cpp, .h or .hpp will be
wrapped in generated code and registered to be called from R.
Usage
cpp_register(
path = ".",
quiet = !is_interactive(),
extension = c(".cpp", ".cc")
)
Arguments
path The path to the package root directory
quiet If TRUE suppresses output from this function
extension The file extension to use for the generated src/cpp11 file. .cpp by default, but
.cc is also supported.
Details
Note registered functions will not be exported from your package unless you also add a @export
roxygen2 directive for them.
In order to use cpp_register() the cli, decor, desc, glue, tibble and vctrs packages must
also be installed.
Value
The paths to the generated R and C++ source files (in that order).
cpp_source 3
Examples
# create a minimal package
dir <- tempfile()
[Link](dir)
writeLines("Package: testPkg", [Link](dir, "DESCRIPTION"))
writeLines("useDynLib(testPkg, .registration = TRUE)", [Link](dir, "NAMESPACE"))
# create a C++ file with a decorated function
[Link]([Link](dir, "src"))
writeLines("[[cpp11::register]] int one() { return 1; }", [Link](dir, "src", "[Link]"))
# register the functions in the package
cpp_register(dir)
# Files generated by registration
[Link]([Link](dir, "R", "cpp11.R"))
[Link]([Link](dir, "src", "[Link]"))
# cleanup
unlink(dir, recursive = TRUE)
cpp_source Compile C++ code
Description
cpp_source() compiles and loads one or more C++ files for use in R. cpp_function() compiles
and loads a single function for use in R. cpp_eval() evaluates a single C++ expression and returns
the result.
Usage
cpp_source(
file,
code = NULL,
env = [Link](),
clean = TRUE,
quiet = TRUE,
cxx_std = [Link]("CXX_STD", "CXX11"),
dir = tempfile()
)
cpp_function(
code,
env = [Link](),
clean = TRUE,
quiet = TRUE,
4 cpp_source
cxx_std = [Link]("CXX_STD", "CXX11")
)
cpp_eval(
code,
env = [Link](),
clean = TRUE,
quiet = TRUE,
cxx_std = [Link]("CXX_STD", "CXX11")
)
Arguments
file One or more files containing C++ code to compile
code If non-null, the C++ code to compile
env The R environment where the R wrapping functions should be defined.
clean If TRUE, cleanup the files after sourcing
quiet If ’TRUE‘, do not show compiler output
cxx_std The C++ standard to use, the CXX_STD make macro is set to this value. The
default value queries the CXX_STD environment variable, or uses ’CXX11’ if
unset.
dir The directory to store the generated source files. tempfile() is used by default.
The directory will be removed if clean is TRUE.
Details
Within C++ code you can use [[cpp11::linking_to("pkgxyz")]] to link to external packages.
This is equivalent to putting those packages in the LinkingTo field in a package DESCRIPTION.
Value
For cpp_source() and [cpp_function()] the results of [Link]() (invisibly). For [cpp_eval()]
the results of the evaluated expression.
Examples
cpp_source(
code = '#include "cpp11/[Link]"
[[cpp11::register]]
int num_odd(cpp11::integers x) {
int total = 0;
for (int val : x) {
if ((val % 2) == 1) {
++total;
}
}
return total;
}
cpp_vendor 5
')
num_odd([Link](c(1:10, 15, 23)))
if (interactive() && require("progress")) {
cpp_source(
code = '
#include <cpp11/[Link]>
#include <RProgress.h>
[[cpp11::linking_to("progress")]]
[[cpp11::register]] void
show_progress() {
RProgress::RProgress pb("Processing [:bar] ETA: :eta");
[Link](0);
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
usleep(2.0 / 100 * 1000000);
[Link]();
}
}
')
show_progress()
}
cpp_vendor Vendor the cpp11 dependency
Description
Vendoring is the act of making your own copy of the 3rd party packages your project is using. It is
often used in the go language community.
Usage
cpp_vendor(path = ".")
Arguments
path The path to the package root directory
Details
This function vendors cpp11 into your package by copying the cpp11 headers into the inst/include
folder of your package and adding ’cpp11 version: XYZ’ to the top of the files, where XYZ is the
version of cpp11 currently installed on your machine.
6 cpp_vendor
If you choose to vendor the headers you should remove LinkingTo: cpp11 from your DESCRIP-
TION.
Note: vendoring places the responsibility of updating the code on you. Bugfixes and new features
in cpp11 will not be available for your code until you run cpp_vendor() again.
Value
The file path to the vendored code (invisibly).
Examples
# create a new directory
dir <- tempfile()
[Link](dir)
# vendor the cpp11 headers into the directory
cpp_vendor(dir)
[Link]([Link](dir, "inst", "include", "cpp11"))
# cleanup
unlink(dir, recursive = TRUE)
Index
cpp_eval (cpp_source), 3
cpp_eval(), 3
cpp_function (cpp_source), 3
cpp_function(), 3
cpp_register, 2
cpp_source, 3
cpp_source(), 3, 4
cpp_vendor, 5
[Link](), 4