irace 4 on windows won't start

[abeham]

Install R-4.4.2 fresh on windows, e.g. to C:\R\R-4.4.2, then install.packages("irace"). In a shell, e.g. Powershell launching irace.exe says

Error: '\R' is an unrecognized escape in character string (<input>:1:17)

Before I had installed R to C:\Program Files\R\R-4.4.2\ and the user library to C:\Users\... and it would complain about "\U' being an unrecognized escape, because irace was in the users library.

irace.exe can't even be started with --version or --help, it crashes right away after starting from powershell or cmd.

I used devtools and rtools to build irace 3.5 within the same r installation (using install_version) and that worked (on the same machine). I also tested a build of 4.0 and it is also broken. So something changed from 3.5 to 4.0 that breaks it on Windows. I am using Windows 11 24H2 x64 machine.

Maybe you have some time to investigate into this.

[MLopez-Ibanez]

Hi @abeham could you test the development version? You can download it for Windows by following the instructions here:

https://github.com/MLopez-Ibanez/irace/#github-development-version

[abeham]

Better, but not quite there yet:

> irace --version
> Error: unexpected end of input
Execution halted

[TheIronBorn]

I am also seeing this

[MLopez-Ibanez]

It is strange that the Windows github action cannot see this...

[MLopez-Ibanez]

Hi @abeham,

I have uploaded a new version that prints some debug info. Could you try again?

In addition, could you execute from within R the following R code and report the output?

irace::irace_cmdline("--version")
sessionInfo()

[abeham]

Now it works!

Here's the info you requested:

> irace::irace_cmdline("--version")
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# irace: An implementation in R of (Elitist) Iterated Racing
# Version: 4.1.0.900.ab2c292-dirty
# Copyright (C) 2010-2025
# Manuel Lopez-Ibanez     <[email protected]>
# Jeremie Dubois-Lacoste
# Leslie Perez Caceres    <[email protected]>
#
# This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
# conditions.  See the GNU General Public License for details. There is NO
# WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
#
# irace builds upon previous code from the race package:
#     race: Racing methods for the selection of the best
#     Copyright (C) 2003 Mauro Birattari
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# installed at: C:/R/R-4.4.2/library/irace
# called with: --version
To cite package 'irace' in publications, please use

  Manuel López-Ibáñez, Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste, Leslie Pérez Cáceres,
  Thomas Stützle, and Mauro Birattari. The irace package: Iterated
  Racing for Automatic Algorithm Configuration. Operations Research
  Perspectives, 3:43-58, 2016. doi:10.1016/j.orp.2016.09.002

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

  @Article{,
    title = {The irace package: Iterated Racing for Automatic Algorithm Configuration},
    author = {Manuel López-Ibáñez and Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste and Leslie {Pérez Cáceres} and Thomas Stützle and Mauro Birattari},
    year = {2016},
    journal = {Operations Research Perspectives},
    doi = {10.1016/j.orp.2016.09.002},
    volume = {3},
    pages = {43--58},
  }
> sessionInfo()
R version 4.4.2 (2024-10-31 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64
Running under: Windows 11 x64 (build 26100)

Matrix products: default


locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.utf8
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United Kingdom.utf8
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United Kingdom.utf8
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.utf8

time zone: Europe/Vienna
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.4.2    R6_2.5.1          tools_4.4.2       withr_3.0.2
[5] spacefillr_0.3.3  Rcpp_1.0.14       irace_4.1.0.900   data.table_1.16.4
[9] matrixStats_1.5.0

[MLopez-Ibanez]

Now it works!

But what is the output from the command-line if you call "irace --version"?

Could you re-install the github version? I added even more debug output, so it should print quite a number of lines.

Thanks!

Manuel.

[abeham]

More output from the shell:

❯ irace --version
fullpath: C:\R\R-4.4.2\library\irace\bin\x64\irace.exe (34)
path: C:/R/R-4.4.2/library (20)
".libPaths(c(r'{C:/R/R-4.4.2/library}', .libPaths()));library(irace);irace_cmdline()"
0: C:\R\R-4.4.2\library\irace\bin\x64\irace.exe
1: --vanilla
2: --slave
3: -e
4: ".libPaths(c(r'{C:/R/R-4.4.2/library}', .libPaths()));library(irace);irace_cmdline()"
5: --args
6: --version

~\
❯ #------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# irace: An implementation in R of (Elitist) Iterated Racing
# Version: 4.1.0.900.ab2c292-dirty
# Copyright (C) 2010-2025
# Manuel Lopez-Ibanez     <[email protected]>
# Jeremie Dubois-Lacoste
# Leslie Perez Caceres    <[email protected]>
#
# This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
# conditions.  See the GNU General Public License for details. There is NO
# WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
#
# irace builds upon previous code from the race package:
#     race: Racing methods for the selection of the best
#     Copyright (C) 2003 Mauro Birattari
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# installed at: C:/R/R-4.4.2/library/irace
# called with: --version
To cite package 'irace' in publications, please use

  Manuel López-Ibáñez, Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste, Leslie Pérez Cáceres,
  Thomas Stützle, and Mauro Birattari. The irace package: Iterated
  Racing for Automatic Algorithm Configuration. Operations Research
  Perspectives, 3:43-58, 2016. doi:10.1016/j.orp.2016.09.002

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

  @Article{,
    title = {The irace package: Iterated Racing for Automatic Algorithm Configuration},
    author = {Manuel López-Ibáñez and Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste and Leslie {Pérez Cáceres} and Thomas Stützle and Mauro Birattari},
    year = {2016},
    journal = {Operations Research Perspectives},
    doi = {10.1016/j.orp.2016.09.002},
    volume = {3},
    pages = {43--58},
  }

[MLopez-Ibanez]

That's great. All looks as expected!

Could you make another test for me? Could you copy the whole folder C:/R/R-4.4.2/library to some temporary folder, like C:/temp-library-for-testing/, then call C:/temp-library-for-testing/irace/bin/x64/irace.exe --version ?

I want to test that it is able to identify correctly from where it is being called.

[abeham]

Sure!

❯ C:\temp-library-for-testing\irace\bin\x64\irace.exe --version
fullpath: C:\temp-library-for-testing\irace\bin\x64\irace.exe (41)
path: C:/temp-library-for-testing (27)
".libPaths(c(r'{C:/temp-library-for-testing}', .libPaths()));library(irace);irace_cmdline()"
0: C:\temp-library-for-testing\irace\bin\x64\irace.exe
1: --vanilla
2: --slave
3: -e
4: ".libPaths(c(r'{C:/temp-library-for-testing}', .libPaths()));library(irace);irace_cmdline()"
5: --args
6: --version

[MLopez-Ibanez]

Thanks, but does it print?

# installed at: C:/R/R-4.4.2/library/irace

[abeham]

No, it prints installed at temp...:

C:\🔒
❯ #------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# irace: An implementation in R of (Elitist) Iterated Racing
# Version: 4.1.0.900.ab2c292-dirty
# Copyright (C) 2010-2025
# Manuel Lopez-Ibanez     <[email protected]>
# Jeremie Dubois-Lacoste
# Leslie Perez Caceres    <[email protected]>
#
# This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
# conditions.  See the GNU General Public License for details. There is NO
# WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
#
# irace builds upon previous code from the race package:
#     race: Racing methods for the selection of the best
#     Copyright (C) 2003 Mauro Birattari
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# installed at: C:/temp-library-for-testing/irace
# called with: --version
To cite package 'irace' in publications, please use

  Manuel López-Ibáñez, Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste, Leslie Pérez Cáceres,
  Thomas Stützle, and Mauro Birattari. The irace package: Iterated
  Racing for Automatic Algorithm Configuration. Operations Research
  Perspectives, 3:43-58, 2016. doi:10.1016/j.orp.2016.09.002

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

  @Article{,
    title = {The irace package: Iterated Racing for Automatic Algorithm Configuration},
    author = {Manuel López-Ibáñez and Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste and Leslie {Pérez Cáceres} and Thomas Stützle and Mauro Birattari},
    year = {2016},
    journal = {Operations Research Perspectives},
    doi = {10.1016/j.orp.2016.09.002},
    volume = {3},
    pages = {43--58},
  }