[Rd] The "lib" argument in install.packages().
Rolf Turner
r.turner at auckland.ac.nz
Tue Nov 24 22:40:53 CET 2009
I was flummoxed for a long time by errors generated when I did
something like
install.packages(foo,lib="Rlib")
where ``Rlib'' is my personalized directory of R packages, which
lives in my home directory (from which I started R before issuing
the foregoing install.packages() call.
Recently someone (I forget who, but thanks very much to whomever
it was) pointed out that I needed to specify the complete pathname,
i.e. "/Users/rturner/Rlib" rather than the relative pathname "Rlib"
or "./Rlib" (which I'd also tried). When the complete pathname is
given the install.packages() call works seamlessly.
Remark: I have "/Users/rturner/Rlib" as the first entry of
my .libPaths(),
so just doing install.packages(foo) works --- but this gives a warning
about lib not being specified, which I find irksome.
Questions:
(1) Why is it that the complete pathname of ``lib'' has to
be specified? Cannot the code of install.packages() be
adjusted to work with relative pathnames?
(2) If indeed this is not possible, wouldn't it be kind and
helpful, to us young ( :-) ) and naive persons, to put an
indication in the help file for install.packages that the
complete pathname is required?
cheers,
Rolf Turner
P. S. > sessionInfo()
R version 2.10.0 (2009-10-26)
i386-apple-darwin8.11.1
locale:
[1] C
attached base packages:
[1] datasets utils stats graphics grDevices methods base
other attached packages:
[1] misc_0.0-11 fortunes_1.3-6 MASS_7.3-3
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