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C

cairo

ANALYTICS
Velocity0.0

R Graphics Device using Cairo Graphics Library for Creating High-Quality Bitmap (PNG, JPEG, TIFF), Vector (PDF, SVG, PostScript) and Display (X11 and Win32) Output

github.com/s-u/cairo ↗

Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.

r-graphicsrenderingapi-paritymaintenancebuild-system
◆Current state
Cairo is the R device that renders plots through the cairo library, and until 1.7-0 it lagged R's own graphics engine by several API generations. That release closes the gap to GE API 16 (R 4.5.0), adding fill patterns, masks and groups. The releases before it were maintenance: a segfault shim for grid, a bashism removal in configure, and Windows font and build fixes.
◆Where it's heading
The arc is catch-up, executed one API generation at a time. Glyph rendering arrived in 1.6-3, GE 15 stubs in 1.6-5 existed only to stop grid from segfaulting, and 1.7-0 delivers the real GE 13/14/16 feature set rather than placeholders. Alongside that, dropping the CAIROGD_VER C API and the mkdist step means the package now builds with plain R CMD build, which reads as deliberate reduction of maintenance overhead.
◆Prediction
Expect the next releases to be corrective rather than additive: the entries show every API adoption here has been followed by a fix release, and patterns, masks and groups are a much larger surface than glyphs were.

◆Recent moves

  1. 9mo ago

    Cairo adds fill patterns, masks and groups (GE API 16)

    ⚡ SPARK

    The release that ends the catch-up arc: Cairo now implements every R graphics device feature through GE API 16, including the fill patterns, masks and groups that earlier versions could only stub out to avoid crashing.

    View source ↗
  2. 11mo ago

    Cairo 1.6-4: configure cleanup, locatorBell dropped on X11

    Housekeeping ahead of the API work: bashisms leave the configure script, and the locatorBell option stops being honored on X11 because R 4.4.0 removed Rf_GetOption() from the API. Both are consequences of upstream changes rather than choices.

    View source ↗
  3. 11mo ago

    Cairo 1.6-5 stubs GE 15 to stop grid segfaulting

    Dummy GE 15 functions are added purely so grid stops segfaulting against a device that had not implemented them. It is the placeholder step in the catch-up arc that 1.7-0 later replaces with real implementations.

    View source ↗
  4. 2y ago

    Cairo 1.6-2

    Two small correctness fixes — a bad format specifier in a UBiDi error string and truncated long font family names — plus a Windows build switched to pkg-config. No change users would notice in output.

    View source ↗
  5. 2y ago

    Cairo 1.6-3 adds glyph rendering for grid.glyph()

    Glyph rendering lands, making grid.glyph() usable through this device. In hindsight this is the first real step of the API catch-up that 1.7-0 completes, rather than the one-off feature it looked like at the time.

    View source ↗