[R] Package struction question (second try)

[Uwe Ligges]

Kuhn, Max wrote:

> Jay,
> 
> You should use "RCMD install --build pkgName" to create the zip file on
> Windows. The zip files you see on CRAN are Windows binaries. You could
> also used "RCMD build pkgName", but I remember seeing a post a while
> back saying that using install instead of build was best (anyone - is
> that true?).

Yes,

   R CMD INSTALL --build

is preferable to

   R CMD build --binary

but

   R CMD build

(without "--binary") builds a source package rather than a binary package.

Uwe Ligges


> 
> See you next week in Groton,
> 
> Max
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Sorry, gmail seemed to have made an attachment out of my first attempted
> 
> post.  Trying again:
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> At the encouragement of many at UseR, I'm trying to build my first real
> package. I have no C/Fortran code, just plain old R code, so it should
> be
> rocket science.  On a Linux box, I used package.skeleton() to create a 
> basic package containing just one "hello world" type of function.  I 
> edited the DESCRIPTION file, changin the package name appropriately.  I 
> edited the hello.Rd file.  Upon running R CMD check hello, the only 
> warning had to do with the fact that src/ was empty (obviously I had no 
> source in such a simple package).  I doubt this is a problem.
> 
> I was able to install and use the package successfully on the Linux
> system
> from the .tar.gz file, so far so good!  Next, on to Windows, where the
> problem arose:
> 
> I created a zip file from inside the package directory:
> 
> zip -r ../hello.zip ./*
> 
> When I moved this to my Windows machine and tried to install the package
> 
> using the GUI, I received the following error:
> 
> 
>>utils:::menuInstallLocal()
> 
> Error in unpackPkg(pkgs[i], pkgnames[i], lib, installWithVers) :
>          malformed bundle DESCRIPTION file, no Contains field
> 
> I only found one mention of this in my Google search, with no reply to
> the
> thread.  The Contains field appears to be used for bundles, but I'm
> trying
> to create a package, not a bundle.  This leads me to believe that a
> simple
> zipping of the package directory structure is not the correct format for
> Windows.
> 
> Needless to say, there appears to be wide agreement that making packages
> requires precision, but fundamentally a package should (as described in 
> the
> documentation) just be a collection of files and folders organized a 
> certain
> way.  If someone could point me to documentation I may have missed that
> explains this, I would be grateful.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jay
>