[Rd] install.packages question / suggestion

[Peter Dalgaard]

Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Thomas Stabla wrote:
....
> > 1) install.packages("<package>") will install <package>, no matter if 
> >    <package> has already been installed.
> > 2) the readline() at the end of install.packages, which asks the user, if 
> >    the downloaded files should be deleted, makes it difficult to 
> >    delete packages automatically after installation (I must admit, I'm not 
> >    quite familiar with R CMD BATCH)
> > 
> > 
> > Question/Request:
> > Is the behaviour in 1) intended?
> 
> Most definitely.  I might want to install it in another library, or to 
> reinstall it under the current version of R.  

Or, as happened to me about an hour ago: You install a package with a
dozen dependencies, then realize that you want to rerun with
dependencies=TRUE.

> > 2) I'd like to have another bool argument, which determines, if the 
> > downloaded files should be deleted.
> 
> What do you think 'destdir' is there for?  If set, this check is skipped.
> You can set it to tempdir() if you like, which is wiped at the end of the 
> session.

Hmm, a bit indirect, isn't it? Adding a 'delete' argument wouldn't
harm, I suppose. Or use 'ask', which could sensibly be passed down
from update.packages().

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907