[R] How to pack my stuff into a package (library, collection)?

[Tribo Laboy]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:09 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> On 4/7/2008 9:33 AM, Tribo Laboy wrote:
>   ...
>
>
> > Hi Duncan,
> >
> >
> > Thanks for your reply. I checked the Rtools and the other relevant
> > tools. I will most probably install them, although unwillingly.
> > Unwillingly, because I like my current setup very much, which is a
> > portable installation of R. I run it on the 5 different machines that
> > I use and it is very easy to sync no mater where I install new or
> > updated packages. I will probably have to designate one of the
> > machines as a development machine and the others will be run-only, but
> > this is very similar to compiled languages. Is there any way to set
> > them up inside the main R directory structure, independent of the
> > operating system, variables, etc.?
> >
>
>  I don't think it will ever be possible to share installed packages across
> different platforms.  The issue is that the different operating systems have
> different requirements for an installed package.  For example, Unix-alikes
> have soft links and make use of them; Windows installs don't.  (Recent
> Windows versions have something similar, but they are so rarely used that I
> think it would be a bad idea to use them.)  There are also differences in
> what functions are available in R in the different platforms (e.g. there's
> no windows() graphics device except on Windows), and some packages may
> install different things depending on the target platform.
>
>  So to do what you want to do, I'd suggest setting up a mini-repository for
> source packages, and updating from there whenever necessary.
>
>
>
> > Once again, it would be very helpful to clarify what is it that is
> > needed to run my R-files and what INSTALL does (I did ?INSTALL, but I
> > am none the wiser).
> >
>
>  I think the best thing to do is to look at the source code.  The
> documentation will necessarily be a little general and abstract; if you want
> to know exactly what it does, just look.
>
>
>  As a user I can do without all the bells and
>
> > whistles of a HTML or chm-help and just some command line parsing of
> > the Rd help files is just fine.
> >
>
>  I'm not sure what you mean by "command line parsing" of the help files, but
> you can certainly set things up to avoid CHM help, and that makes package
> installation easier on Windows.  I am inclined to make HTML help the default
> in 2.8.0, so that by default you won't need the CHM compiler:  but that
> won't be until the fall, and there may be objections to the change.
>
>
>
> > Obviously, I can run my functions when
> > "sourced" and I do not interface to FORTRAN or C, so I do not
> > understand what more is needed.
> >
>
>  I agree that we should make it easier to install packages without compiled
> code, and I think if you look at the evolution of Rtools over the years,
> you'll see that we have.  We aren't done yet.
>
>
>
> > Is it a namespace issue or just help
> > file compilation? Whatever it is, I suspect that this rigid INSTALL
> > and package build process is very helpful to enforce good quality
> > packages on CRAN with good quality documentation. But isn't it an
> > overkill for average Joe Programmer, who will never submit
> > 'joes_weighted_mean' package to CRAN?
> >
>
>  I don't think so.  I think even Joe benefits from the QA support in R. But
> if he doesn't want to make use of it, he does have the option of just
> source'ing the code.
>
>
>
> > Anyway, if you'd have some piece of advice, I'd really appreciate it.
> >
>
>  Two pieces:
>
>  1.  Do install Rtools, but read the options carefully.  You can get a
> smaller install by leaving out some optional components.  It's still likely
> to be on the order of 50 MB installed, because we rely on Perl, and it's
> about 40 MB.  Now, 50 MB sounds like a lot (it's more than twice the size of
> the hard drive on my first PC), but it's just 2.5% of the size of the USB
> thumb drive in my pocket, and less than 0.02% of the size of the hard drive
> in the PC I just bought for my mother.  It's really trivial for most people.
>
>  2.  Study the install process, and identify ways in which we could make it
> easier for people in your circumstances without making it harder for
> everyone.  Let us know, and contribute documentation or patches that do it.
>
>  Duncan Murdoch
>


Hi again,

Thanks for the advice. I do not mind the 40 MB or 50 MB. Still I'd
hope it would be possible to avoid it if full blown cross-platform
packages for CRAN are not needed. I am not a Perl hacker, but from
what I saw in the INSTALL source most of the calls that do the stuff
are to the system and zip utils, the other parts are Windows help-file
building (on Windows), housekeeping and checks, as far as I can tell.
For people in my situation (personal pure R packages), probably all
the checks if an older version exists or not are not so important, as
aren't the windows help-files. A command line parsing of the Rd files
will go a long way in reminding the programmer/user of how to use the
function. By "command line parsing" I mean typing 'help(fun)' and
getting inside the R command window the parsed output of the Rd file
after stripping of all the markup. Similar to, say, linux man command
or Matlab/Octave which contains the documentation of the function in
the first part of the file containing the source code. This way the Rd
file will be there, so when the author decides that he's ready to
submit to CRAN he'll have to INSTALL, compile or build the packages it
will be easier.

But in the long term, I think,  it would be natural if pure R would be
packageable and runnable from within R without any additional platform
dependent tools. I am moving from Matlab and my m-files basically run
without modification on both Windows and Linux, save for some system
dependent commands. It is also quite easy to add/remove a user
directory of M-files to the Matlab search path. It is not that I am
recommending or advocating this particular approach for R, but it has
some attraction as it is quite simple.

I'll follow your advice and I'll see if I'll come up with some useful
contribution.

Thanks again.

TL