R Observatory: Metrics for lbfgsb3c version 2026-3.5

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

lbfgsb3c

2026-3.5Package record

Limited Memory BFGS Minimizer with Bounds on Parameters with optim() 'C' Interface

7packages dependsuggested by 7

77.4Kdownloads / year

84.7%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Matthew L FidlerCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗

Interfacing to Nocedal et al. L-BFGS-B.3.0 (See http://users.iems.northwestern.edu/~nocedal/lbfgsb.html) limited memory BFGS minimizer with bounds on parameters. This is a fork of 'lbfgsb3'. This registers a 'R' compatible 'C' interface to L-BFGS-B.3.0 that uses the same function types and optimization as the optim() function (see writing 'R' extensions and source for details). This package also adds more stopping criteria as well as allowing the adjustment of more tolerances.

Changes in 2026-3.5

Added a thread-safe C++ port of the L-BFGS-B 3.0 Fortran code (the Fortran is kept and remains the default). It keeps no shared mutable state and does not call the R API, so independent problems can be solved concurrently (for example as an inner optimizer in an OpenMP loop). The port reproduces the Fortran results exactly. Its workspace is allocated once per thread and reused (zeroed per run), so memory scales with the number of threads, not the number of optimizations.
The C++ port is available from C/C++ as lbfgsb3Cts (the second element of .lbfgsb3cPtr(), set up by iniLbfgsb3 in lbfgsb3ptr.h) and from R with lbfgsb3c(..., control = list(engine = "cpp")).

Show all changes in 2026-3.5Hide the rest of the changes in 2026-3.5

lbfgsb3C_ no longer stores its $info result in a global R list.
lmm is now validated. lbfgsb3c() errors unless it is a whole number >= 1; the C entry points return fail = 29 ("ERROR: INVALID LMM") instead of dividing by zero (lmm <= 0) or overflowing the workspace size (very large lmm). n <= 0 returns fail = 13 before any work arrays are allocated.
Nested lbfgsb3c() calls (an objective that runs its own optimization) now work: the R callbacks are kept per call instead of in globals that the inner call overwrote. A gradient of the wrong length is now an error instead of a read past its end.
Added src/Makevars (OpenMP for the internal thread-safety test helper, and explicit $(FLIBS)).
Removed the unused timer.f (its cpu_time call left an unresolved symbol with flang 21+), and the vignette no longer calls pkgbuild::compile_dll() (it failed when checked outside the source tree).
control$reltol is now checked for length one (the check tested abstol instead, so an empty reltol was read out of bounds).

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

R (CRAN)pak (dev)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("lbfgsb3c", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("nlmixr2/lbfgsb3c")

Development version from nlmixr2/lbfgsb3c. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-lbfgsb3c

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-lbfgsb3c

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-lbfgsb3c

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 3.1 min · r-devel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK14 OK2026-04-22
ERROR13 OK, 1 ERROR2026-04-18
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 2026-3.5

READMEYes · 81 wordsVignettesYes · 1 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 2026-3.5Citation fileNoWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 2
Examples that run: 100%2 run in a plain check
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 50%

Vignettes (1)

lbfgsb3c-nocompile HTML

How these are measured

Downloads

77.4K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #1,527 · ~212/day · ~6.4K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

5.8K30 days

15.9K90 days

77.4K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on1.6K r2u6 autocran22.5K conda_forge120 c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

nlmixr2/lbfgsb3c ↗Organization: nlmixr2

2Stars

1Forks

1Open issues

1Open PRs

5Releases

151Commits

5Commit identities

151 commits · Last activity 2026-10-06 · +100% stars, 30d

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 100%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 36
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

Stars over time

2025-02-17 · 12026-10-07 · 2

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

8 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 4 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/nlmixr2/lbfgsb3c on 2026-10-21.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

The R CMD check workflow runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, and on R-devel

Docs source (3)

pkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-10-06 · The repository has a site deploy workflow

pkgdown site last built 2026-10-06

Coverage (1)

Coverage reporting (Codecov)

CRAN release process (2)

cran-comments.mdCRAN-SUBMISSION

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (2026-10-20)

AI coding toolsBeta

This repository shows signs of AI coding tools.

Claude Codefirst seen 2026-08-27
Pull request it wrote: opened by a project member
Commits: at least 1 crediting it in the message

Models named in its commits

Claude Opus 51 commit · Aug 2026

Counts are commits, not lines of code. Commits by a tool's accounts count once across all of its accounts. Commits crediting it are the largest count among its credit lines, a minimum.How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (updated 2026-09-27)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

11 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing lbfgsb3c adds 3 packages (2 with compiled code, 2.9 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: Rcpp 1.8 MB, RcppArmadillo 1.0 MB, numDeriv 74 KB.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.6

Imports (3)

Rcpp numDerivmethods

LinkingTo (2)

Rcpp RcppArmadillo

Suggests (7)

knitr microbenchmark optimx RcppArmadillo rmarkdown testthat adagio

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

7direct

19indirect

Imports 7 · LinkingTo 1

Suggested by 7

Show all 14 packagesHide all 14 packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

nlmixr2est optimizeR causalOT GCEstim calibrar tseriesTARMA dicepro

Suggests, most downloaded first

metafor optimParallel optimx blackbox psqn flexFitR ROI.plugin.optimx

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (6)

Matthew L Fidler

Author, Maintainer since 2018-2.13 (2018)

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Listed in earlier versions (3)

Show 3 peopleHide 3 people

Fidler

no longer listed · 2018-2.13 to 2026-3.5

Morales

no longer listed · 2018-2.13 to 2026-3.5

Nash

no longer listed · 2018-2.13 to 2026-3.5

Releases (10)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

2026-3.5Latest
record
2026-10-06 · current release · diff ↗ ·
listed once in CRAN's queue
Seen in one reading of CRAN's incoming queue, at 2026-10-06 15:36 UTC, so it stayed less than the time between readings.
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
2024-3.5
record
2024-09-18 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
.lbfgsb3cPtr
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
2024-3.4
record
2024-04-04 · diff ↗
2024-3.3
record
2024-04-01 · diff ↗
2020-3.3
record
2023-11-28 · diff ↗
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
2020-3.2
record
2020-03-03 · diff ↗
2020-2.3
record
2020-02-10 · diff ↗
2019-11.26
record
2019-11-30 · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
lbfgsb3, lbfgsb3f, lbfgsb3x
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26

Show 3 earlier eventsHide 3 earlier events

2018-2.13-1
record
2018-12-01 · diff ↗
2018-2.13
record
2018-10-19
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23

Across CRAN, the median accepted release of the past year spent 26 hours in the queue, 90% under 11 days.How queue time is measured

Package metadata

First published: 2018-10-19
Total releases: 10 / 8 yrs
License: GPL-2 OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 3.6
Download size: 143 KB

Appears in task views

Optimization and Mathematical Programming

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("lbfgsb3c")

Format

Fidler, M. L., Byrd, R., Morales, J. L., Nash, J. C., Nocedal, J., & Zhu, C. (2026). lbfgsb3c: Limited Memory BFGS Minimizer with Bounds on Parameters with optim() 'C' Interface (Version 2026-3.5) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.lbfgsb3c

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for lbfgsb3c version 2026-3.5 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-25. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-25, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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