[Rd] Capture output of install.packages (pipe system2)

[Hadley Wickham]

> Brian Ripley's reply describes how it is done in the tools package.  For
> example, as I sent privately to Jeroen,
>
> x <- system2("Rscript", "-e \"install.packages('MASS',
> repos='http://probability.ca/cran')\"", stdout=TRUE, stderr=TRUE)
>
> captures all of the output from installing MASS.  As Jeroen pointed out,
> that isn't identical to running install.packages() in the current session; a
> real version of it should fill in more of the arguments, not leave them at
> their defaults.

It does seems a little crazy that you're in a R process, then open
another one, which then opens a 3rd session! (often indirectly by
calling R CMD install which then calls an internal function in tools)

Hadley

-- 
Chief Scientist, RStudio
http://had.co.nz/