[R] Making a Package

[Gabor Grothendieck]

KKThird <at> Yahoo.Com <kkthird <at> yahoo.com> writes:

: 
: Hello.
: I have what I know to be a simple question, but never having done anything 
like this it is
: pretty tough.
: 
: I'm trying to write an R package. I have a collection of functions that I 
loaded into R and
: then used package.skeleton(). After editing everything in the resulting 
folder, call it
: NewPackage, I tried to follow along with some instructions I found for 
Windows users.
: 
: I installed ActivePearl to the C drive, placed the unzipped Rtools folder, 
tools, there also
: (is placing it there all that is necessary; I couldn't find anything 
to "install" tools), and
: I'm using R 2.00 (also installed on the C drive) on a Win-XP machine.
: 
: My understaning is that (since I have no C, Fortran, etc., code) I can move 
the NewPackage
: folder (with all of the edited material) to the C:\r\rw2000\src\library 
folder and then open
: MS-Dos in C:\r\rw2000\src\gnuwin32 and type: make pkg-NewPackage. After 
that, a folder called
: NewPackage should be placed in the C:\r\rw2000\library and from there loaded 
into R and/or zipped and
: distributed. If everything I have said is correct (which it may not be) then 
I'm
: stuck. When I type 'make pkg-NewPackage' in the C:\r\rw2000\src\gnuwin32 
directory I get
: "'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable 
program or batch file."
: 
: I've tried to use "Writing R Extensions," but I could only follow part of 
what it was saying
: and got confused as to what was done on Windows and what was done on Unix 
machines.
: I know this is probably an easy question, but it has proved difficult for me 
to figure out how
: to make my own package.
: Thanks, Ken


Make sure that:
- the tools and the R bin folders are in your path
- you have installed fptex or MiKTeX, perl and the Microsoft help compiler
  (MiKTeX is a bit harder to install but I otherwise prefer it.  If you
  are writing vignettes you must use MiKTeX.)
- you have read:
   Writing R Extensions Manual
   http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/

I am assuming here that your R installation is in \Program Files\R\rw....

1. Assuming your source package tree is in \Rpkgs\mypackage
   then in the Windows cmd line:

	cd \Rpkgs
	Rcmd install mypackage

   which will install it to your \Program Files\R\rw....\library\mypackage
   or if you want to install it to a separate library:

	cd \Rpkgs
	md library
	Rcmd install -l library mypackage

2. Now in R:

	library(mypackage)
	... test it out ...

or if you installed it to a separate library:

	library(mypackage, lib.loc = "/Rpkgs/library")

3. Once it seems reasonably ok,  see if it passes Rcmd check:

	cd \Rpkgs
	Rcmd check mypackage

   and fix it up until it does.

4. Now create versions for UNIX and Windows that you can distribute:

	cd \Rpkgs
	Rcmd build mypackage
	Rcmd build mypackage --binary