This blog is updated daily.
A general description is here.
On 64-bit Linux systems, ‘configure’ now only sets ‘LIBnn’ to ‘lib64’
if ‘/usr/lib64’ exists. This may obviate setting ‘LIBnn’ explicitly on
Debian-derived systems.
It is still necessary to set ‘LIBnn = lib’ for 32-bit builds of R on 64-bit OS on those Linux distributions capable for supporting that concept.
There is a new function ‘mcmapply()’, a parallel version of ‘mapply()’, and a wrapper ‘mcMap()’, a parallel version of ‘Map()’.
A default cluster can be registered by the new function ‘setDefaultCluster()’: this will be used by default in functions such as ‘parLapply()’.
‘clusterMap()’ has a new argument ‘.scheduling’ to allow the use of load-balancing.
There are new load-balancing function ‘parLapplyLB()’ and ‘parSapplyLB()’.
Package ‘parallel’ now allows a default cluster to be registered by
‘setDefaultCluster()’: this will be used by default in functions such
as ‘parLapply()’.
It has a new function ‘mcmapply()’, a parallel version of ‘mapply()’, and a wrapper ‘mcMap()’, a parallel version of ‘Map()’.
‘clusterMap()’ has a new argument ‘.scheduling’ to allow the use of load-balancing.
There are new load-balancing versions ‘parLapplyLB’ and ‘parSapplyLB’.
‘Sys.putenv()’, deprecated in R 2.5.0, is finally removed.
Some functions which have been defunct for 5 or more years have been removed completely.
‘stack()’ now gives an error if no vector column is selected, rather
than returning a 1-column data frame (contrary to its documentation).
‘str(x, width)’ now obeys its ‘width’ argument also for function headers and other objects ‘x’ where ‘deparse()’ is applied.
‘parallel::detectCores()’ is now able to find the number of physical cores (rather than CPUs) on Sparc Solaris.
It can also do so on recent versions of Windows (but not Windows XP); however the default remains ‘detectCores(logical = TRUE)’ on that platform.
On 64-bit Linux systems, ‘configure’ now only sets ‘LIBnn’ to ‘lib64’ if ‘/usr/lib64’ exists. This may obviate setting ‘LIBnn’ explicitly on Debian-derived systems.
It is still necessary to set ‘LIBnn = lib’ for 32-bit builds of R on a 64-bit OS on those Linux distributions capable for supporting that concept.
‘stack()’ now gives an error if no vector column is selected, rather than returning a 1-column data frame (contrary to its documentation).
There are two new options for typesetting PDF manuals from Rd files. These are ‘beramono’ and ‘inconsolata’, and used the named font for monospaced output. They are intended to be used in combination with ‘times’, and ‘times,inconsolata,hyper’ is now the default for the reference manual and package manuals. If you do not have that font installed, you can set ‘R_RD4PF’ to one of the other options: see the ‘R Installation and Administration Manual’.
In package ‘parallel’, ‘detectCores(logical = FALSE)’ makes an OS-dependent attempt to find the number of physical cores.