[R] Homemade packages.

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Rolf Turner wrote:

>
> Dear Brian:
>
> Thanks for your response to my posting to the r-help list.
>
> You wrote:
>
> >  You shouldn't be installing into `.' You install packages into a
> >  *library*
>
> 	(a) Installing into `.' seemed to work fine under 1.3.1.
>
> 	(b) What then, is a ``library''?  I took ``library'' to
> 	mean a directory containing a number of subdirectories,
> 	each of which constituted a package.  So when I am located
> 	in ~rolf/Rlib --- which is what I want to be my ``personal
> 	library'' --- and I install into `.' then I ***am***
> 	installing into a library, since `.' ***is*** a library.
>
> 	If the foregoing does not make sense, then I am clearly

They constitute binary not source packages.

> 	misunderstanding the nature of the library/packages
> 	structure.  And if this is indeed the case, then I think
> 	the documentation should be clarified.  The documentation
> 	currently says
>
> 		A package consists of a subdirectory containing the
> 		files DESCRIPTION and INDEX, and the subdirectories
> 		R, data, demo, exec, inst, man, src, and tests (some
> 		of which can be missing).
>
> 	and
>
> 		To install into the library tree `lib', use
> 		`R CMD INSTALL -l lib pkgs'.
>
> 		Both `lib' and the elements of `pkgs' may be absolute
> 		or relative path names.
>
> 	There appears to me to no special requirements for the
> 	directory `lib' and in particular nothing saying that `lib'
> 	cannot be the current working directory.

Well, of course it can, but it should not contain existing source packages
of the same name!  That's just adding confusion. It doesn't say so,
because I suspect no one considered doing something *that* confusing.

> >  and the default (R_HOME/library if R_LIBS is unset) is normally
> >  sufficient.
>
> 	I am working on a multi-user system, not on a PC.  I am not
> 	working as root, and I am trying to install a package in a
> 	***personal*** library, NOT in a generally available
> 	``system'' library.

So do I (although it is a techically a PC), If you set R_LIBS, you will
get a personal library, and R CMD INSTALL will by default install into it.
(I do that all the time.)

So I think you are critizing something I did not say.

-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._