[R] install.packages() for local source file

[Prof Brian Ripley]

This is not a `definitive bug' but as you have been told repeatedly a 
failure on your part to read the help adequately:

   contriburl: URL of the contrib section of CRAN.

The good news is that R-devel does support local installation, so R 2.1.0 
will.

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Paul Roebuck wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Roger D. Peng wrote:
>
>> Paul Roebuck wrote:
>>> Wish to install a local source package on Un*x platform from
>>> within R. Same thing as I can accomplish from cmdline as
>>>
>>> $ export R_LIBS=~/R/library
>>> $ cd /path/to/pkg
>>> $ R CMD INSTALL -l $R_LIBS <pkgname>
>>>
>>>
>>> So, how do you go about this anyway?
>>> And isn't this a bug in 'install.packages'?
>>>
>>> -------
>>> $ R
>>>
>>> R : Copyright 2004, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
>>> Version 1.9.0  (2004-04-12), ISBN 3-900051-00-3
>>>
>>>
>>>> file.pkg <- "mypkg_0.1.tar.gz"
>>>> path.pkg <- file.path(path.expand("~"), "cvknn", file.pkg)
>>>> file.exists(path.pkg)
>>>
>>> [1] TRUE
>>>
>>>> uri.pkg <- paste("file://", path.pkg, sep = "")
>>>> install.packages(contriburl = uri.pkg, lib = Sys.getenv("R_LIBS"))
>>>
>>> Error in file.info(x) : Object "tmpd" not found
>>>
>>>> traceback()
>>>
>>> 4: file.info(x)
>>> 3: dirTest(destdir)
>>> 2: download.packages(pkgs, destdir = tmpd, available = available,
>>>        contriburl = contriburl, method = method)
>>> 1: install.packages(contriburl = uri.pkg, lib = Sys.getenv("R_LIBS"))
>>>
>>>> version
>>>
>>>          _
>>> platform sparc-sun-solaris2.9
>>> arch     sparc
>>> os       solaris2.9
>>> system   sparc, solaris2.9
>>> status
>>> major    1
>>> minor    9.0
>>> year     2004
>>> month    04
>>> day      12
>>> language R
>>>
>>
>> By the way, do you get this error in a recent version of R
>> (say >= 1.9.1). I believe install.packages() has changed
>> since 1.9.0.  For example, see the thread starting here
>>
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2004-July/053001.html
>>
>
> Roger,
>
> Thanks for that link which helped me diagnose the problem.
> I observed the same error you observed (.../053047.html). Still
> think it's kind of hinky to pass an uninitialized variable (tmpd)
> to another method and count on it doing something though.
>
> I wondered if something had changed as well, but noticed no change
> glancing at the source for install.packages on 2.0.1 (OS X).
> But underneath, the behavior was different since I got a
> different error message which noted the lack of a PACKAGES
> file. That was enough to get the rest to work...
>
> Hopefully this will help my case for updating to the current
> version on our shared Un*x workstations since I can now point
> to a definitive bug that impacted my work due to using an
> older version of this software.
>
> --------
> R : Copyright 2004, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
> Version 2.0.1  (2004-11-15), ISBN 3-900051-07-0
>
>> parentdir <- file.path(path.expand("~"), "Projects", "cvknn")
>> uri.parentdir <- paste("file://", parentdir, sep = "")
>> savewd <- getwd()
>> setwd(parentdir)
>> rmsymlink <- FALSE
>> if (file.exists("PACKAGES") == FALSE) {
>>     file.symlink(file.path("mypkg", "DESCRIPTION"), "PACKAGES")
>>     rmsymlink <- TRUE
>> }
>> install.packages("mypkg",
> +                  contriburl = uri.parentdir,
> +                  lib = Sys.getenv("R_LIBS"))
>> if (rmsymlink) file.remove("PACKAGES")
>> setwd(savewd)
>
> Perhaps the documentation for the 'contriburl' should
> specify that it is expecting 'URL of the directory of
> the contrib section of CRAN'.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)
>
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-- 
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 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595