Using a custom memory allocation function in R - c

Question

I would like to be able to use my own memory allocation function for certain data structures (real valued vectors and arrays) in R. The reason for this is that I need my data to be 64bit aligned and I would like to use the numa library for having control over which memory node is used (I'm working on compute nodes with four 12-core AMD Opteron 6174 CPUs).
Now I have two functions for allocating and freeing memory: numa_alloc_onnode and numa_free (courtesy of this thread). I'm using R version 3.1.1, so I have access to the function allocVector3 (src/main/memory.c), which seems to me as the intended way of adding a custom memory allocator. I also found the struct R_allocator in src/include/R_ext
However it is not clear to me how to put these pieces together. Let's say, in R, I want the result res of an evaluation such as
res <- Y - mean(Y)
to be saved in a memory area allocated with my own function, how would I do this? Can I integrate allocVector3 directly at the R level? I assume I have to go through the R-C interface. As far as I know, I cannot just return a pointer to the allocated area, but have to pass the result as an argument. So in R I call something like
n <- length(Y)
res <- numeric(length=1)
.Call("R_allocate_using_myalloc", n, res)
res <- Y - mean(Y)
and in C
#include <R.h>
#include <Rinternals.h>
#include <numa.h>
SEXP R_allocate_using_myalloc(SEXP R_n, SEXP R_res){
PROTECT(R_n = coerceVector(R_n, INTSXP));
PROTECT(R_res = coerceVector(R_res, REALSXP));
int *restrict n = INTEGER(R_n);
R_allocator_t myAllocator;
myAllocator.mem_alloc = numa_alloc_onnode;
myAllocator.mem_free = numa_free;
myAllocator.res = NULL;
myAllocator.data = ???;
R_res = allocVector3(REALSXP, n, myAllocator);
UNPROTECT(2);
}
Unfortunately I cannot get beyond a variable has incomplete type 'R_allocator_t' compilation error (I had to remove the .data line since I have no clue as to what I should put there). Does any of the above code make sense? Is there an easier way of achieving what I want to? It seems a bit odd to have to allocate a small vector in R and the change its location in C just to be able to both control the memory allocation and have the vector available in R...
I'm trying to avoid using Rcpp, as I'm modifying a fairly large package and do not want to convert all C calls and thought that mixing different C interfaces could perform sub-optimally.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I made some progress in solving my problem and I would like to share in case anyone else encounters a similar situation. Thanks to Kevin for his comment. I was missing the include statement he mentions. Unfortunately this was only one among many problems.
dyn.load("myAlloc.so")
size <- 3e9
myBigmat <- .Call("myAllocC", size)
print(object.size(myBigmat), units = "auto")
rm(myBigmat)
#include <R.h>
#include <Rinternals.h>
#include <R_ext/Rallocators.h>
#include <numa.h>
typedef struct allocator_data {
size_t size;
} allocator_data;
void* my_alloc(R_allocator_t *allocator, size_t size) {
((allocator_data*)allocator->data)->size = size;
return (void*) numa_alloc_local(size);
}
void my_free(R_allocator_t *allocator, void * addr) {
size_t size = ((allocator_data*)allocator->data)->size;
numa_free(addr, size);
}
SEXP myAllocC(SEXP a) {
allocator_data* my_allocator_data = malloc(sizeof(allocator_data));
my_allocator_data->size = 0;
R_allocator_t* my_allocator = malloc(sizeof(R_allocator_t));
my_allocator->mem_alloc = &my_alloc;
my_allocator->mem_free = &my_free;
my_allocator->res = NULL;
my_allocator->data = my_allocator_data;
R_xlen_t n = asReal(a);
SEXP result = PROTECT(allocVector3(REALSXP, n, my_allocator));
UNPROTECT(1);
return result;
}
For compiling the c code, I use R CMD SHLIB -std=c99 -L/usr/lib64 -lnuma myAlloc.c. As far as I can tell, this works fine. If anyone has improvements/corrections to offer, I'd be happy to include them.
One requirement from the original question that remains unresolved is the alignment issue. The block of memory returned by numa_alloc_local is correctly aligned, but other fields of the new VECTOR_SEXPREC (eg. the sxpinfo_struct header) push back the start of the data array. Is it somehow possible to align this starting point (the address returned by REAL())?

Answer 2

R has, in memory.c:
main/memory.c
84:#include <R_ext/Rallocators.h> /* for R_allocator_t structure */
so I think you need to include that header as well to get the custom allocator (RInternals.h merely declares it, without defining the struct or including that header)