I inherited a C++ application that was using rcpp to embed R. After R was upgraded to 3.2, the make was failing miserably with the error:
file1.o:(.bss+0x0): multiple definition of `R_running_as_main_program'
file2.o:(.bss+0x0): first defined here
This was found to be caused by https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=15899
To overcome this, edit /usr/share/R/include/Rinterface.h and search for this line:
int R_running_as_main_program;
Add the “extern” keyword at the start and save it:
extern int R_running_as_main_program;
After that there should be no problem building the program.