[Rd] Package Installation in RGui (PR#7262)

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 Heather.Turner at warwick.ac.uk wrote:

> Full_Name: Heather Turner
> Version: 2.0.0
> OS: Windows NT
> Submission from: (NULL) (137.205.8.2)
> 
> 
> I tried using the Packages menu to install the gam package and get the following
> output:
> 
> > local({a <- CRAN.packages()
> + install.packages(select.list(a[,1],,TRUE), .libPaths()[1], available=a,
> dependencies=TRUE)})
> trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/PACKAGES'
> Content type `text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1' length 21246 bytes
> opened URL
> downloaded 20Kb
> 
> trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/gam_0.92.zip'
> Content type `application/zip' length 224167 bytes
> opened URL
> downloaded 218Kb
> 
> package 'gam' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
> 
> Delete downloaded files (y/N)? y
> 
> Warning message: 
> unable to move temp installation 'H:/rw2000/library\file15762/gam' to
> 'H:/rw2000/library/gam'
> 
> I get the same message if I opt to delete the downloaded files and the
> same problem if I try to install from a downloaded .zip file instead -
> not really surprising as seems to "unpack" file okay, but loses the
> temporary file. As the syntax of the file path for the temporary file is
> incorrect, I'm assuming this is a bug in install.packages or one of the
> functions it calls...

Since you _incorrectly_ assume that the syntax is incorrect, the rest of
your assumption is incorrect.  As the FAQ asks, please don't speculate
about things you are not expert about, but stick to facts.  Also as the
FAQ asks, don't misuse R-bugs for things you do not know _for sure_ are
bugs in R.

FYI, Windows accepts both /and \ in file paths, including a mixture.  If
your speculation was correct install.packages() would work for no one, and
do you seriously think that such a bug would go unreported and unfixed.

We have seen this once before, and it was a Windows bug solved by updating 
Windows to the latest set of patches.  Since you have not reported a 
precise version of Windows, it is hard for us to know what you were using, 
but if you mean NT4.0, that is rather old (last Service Pack five years 
ago I read yesterday).

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595