[Rd] Respecting custom repositories files in interactive/batch R sessions

[Gabriel Becker]

Hi Dirk,

So there's a couple of things going on. First off you're correct that that
works generally. There are a couple of reasons that made it not. The first
is a bug/design error in Rstudio which is causing the R_PROFILE to not be
adhered to when you build there. I will be filing a bug regarding that with
them, as I know that is irrelevant to this list.  There was some indication
that even raw R CMD check running via an R studio server installation was
missing the profile, but that ended up being spurious upon deeper testing.

That said, I do think that there is a case to be made for the ability to
modify what repositories R knows about at a more fundamental level than
setting options in a site profile, and that is, ostensibly, what the
repositories file machinery does. I understand it was intended initially
and is currently only (?) used for the windows repository gui menu and
related setRepositories function, but I still think there is some value in
extending it in the ways I described.

One major difference is that in this case, even when run with --vanilla,
administrators would still be in control of which repositories users hit
(by default only, of course, but there is still value in that).

Best,
~G

On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 11:31 AM Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:

>
> I may be missing something here but aren't you overcomplicating things?
> One
> can avoid the repetitive dialog by setting   options(repos)   accordingly,
> and I have long done so.  The Debian (and hence Ubuntu and other
> derivatives)
> package does so via the Rprofile.site I ship.  See e.g. here
>
>  https://sources.debian.org/src/r-base/4.2.1-2/debian/Rprofile.site/
>
> I have used the same mechanism to point to intra-company repositories,
> easily
> a decade or so ago. I had no problems with R CMD check of in-house packages
> using this.
>
> Dirk
>
> --
> dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org
>

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]