[R] Hunting for snow...

[Uwe Ligges]

Brian Lunergan wrote:
> Uwe Ligges wrote:
>> Brian Lunergan wrote:
>>> Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 8 Jul 2006, Brian Lunergan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Evening folks:
>>>>>
>>>>> I did an install.views of finance and econometrics and between the 
>>>>> two of
>>>>> them R reported 'FracSim', 'RDCOMClient', 'snow', 'VGAM', and 
>>>>> 'segmented'
>>>>> as missing dependencies. Now, I've managed to hunt down what appear 
>>>>> to be
>>>>> current zip file copies of all of the packages but 'snow'. Is there a
>>>>> windows edition of the package out there someplace that will get 
>>>>> along with
>>>>> R v2.3.1 and if so, how do I find it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Please and thanks...
>>>> PLEASE read the README:
>>>>
>>>> http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.3/@ReadMe
>>>>
>>>> and see the check summary at
>>>>
>>>> http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/checkSummaryWin.html
>>>>
>>>> snow runs distributed R tasks across hosts: it has three modes and
>>>> prefers PVM and MPI if packages rpvm or Rmpi are available (which 
>>>> they are not for Windows).  As a result only some of its 
>>>> functionality can be used on Windows, and anyone who is going to get 
>>>> involved at that level of programming will very easily install the 
>>>> package from the sources.
>>>>
>>> Let me see if I understand this correctly. Something in the finance 
>>> task view would seem to consider snow a dependency; however, the 
>>> package in question has dragged it along for the ride into Windows, 
>>> crippling its usefulness.
>>>
>>> Problem and a question. Having checked the file on the UofT CRAN 
>>> mirror that lists dependencies for the available files snow only 
>>> appears attached to three of them, none of which are listed as part 
>>> the finance view or anything I already have on my system. What is R 
>>> seeing these as a dependency for then? Perhaps the view maintainers 
>>> can suggest something? If it is not available for windows and is only 
>>> partially functional there can it be safely ignored as a dependency?
>>>
>>> One other puzzle resulting from this. The check summary suggested 
>>> problems with 'FracSim', 'RDCOMClient', 'VGAM', and 'segmented' as 
>>> windows packages but yet the versions I found seemed to install 
>>> without complaint onto my 
>>
>> Where did you find them? At least not in their current versions on the 
>> official repository on CRAN master for R-2.3.x, I hope.
> 
> FracSim_0.2.zip
> http://cran.stat.ucla.edu/bin/windows/contrib/2.3/
> 
> RDCOMClient_0.91-0.zip
> http://www.omegahat.org/R/bin/windows/contrib/R-2.3.0/
> 
> segmented_0.1-4.zip
> http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.1/
> 
> VGAM_0.6-9.zip
> http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~yee/bin/windows/contrib/2.3/

None of them is on CRAN master:

- RDCOMClient is on Omegahat
- segmented is CRAN but outdated for R-2.1.x
- VGAM is in a private repository
- FracSim: I cannot access
http://cran.stat.ucla.edu/bin/windows/contrib/2.3/
right now, but I guess it does not sync properly. At least, the package 
should not be there.

Uwe Ligges


> These are the versions I found and the locations. Other than perhaps 
> segmented all seem to be positioned as compatible with v2.3.x, but I own 
> that I could be incorrect in my assessment of the situation.
> 
>>> system. Three gave back the successful unpack msg. VGAM did not, but 
>>> several of the demo scripts ran without complaint so I am assuming it 
>>> is comfortable with v2.3.1 on a windows system. Later versions of the 
>>> four than were tested in the check summary, perhaps?
>>
>> The check summary is recent. I can only imagine that you found earlier 
>> versions...
>