[R] Upgrading R means I lose my packages

[Rolf Turner]

On 28/08/2008, at 3:00 PM, Charilaos Skiadas wrote:

> On Aug 27, 2008, at 10:40 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
>
>>
>> On 28/08/2008, at 2:02 PM, James Milks wrote:
>>
>>> The title says it all.  Does anyone know of a way to save your  
>>> packages when you upgrade to a new version of R?  This may seem  
>>> petty, but I'm accumulating enough packages that having to  
>>> download and install each of them anew every time I install a new  
>>> version of R is rather of a pain.  Ideally, I would like the new  
>>> version of R to recognize the packages I've installed on the  
>>> previous version without needing to reinstall the packages.  Is  
>>> that possible?
>>>
>>> My system: Mac OS 10.5.4.
>>> Current R version: 2.7.1
>>
>> Mac OS moves in mysterious ways, but apparently your installation  
>> moves in more mysterious
>> ways than most.
>>
>> I also (by necessity, not by choice) run Mac OS.  But I certainly  
>> don't lose my
>> packages when I update R.  The new version of R certainly  
>> ``recognizes'' the packages
>> that I have installed.  No action required.
>>
>> There may be something funny about *where* you have your packages  
>> installed, and
>> what environment variables you have set.
>>
>> To answer your question ``Is that possible?'' --- Yes.  Not just  
>> possible,
>> but universal.  Except, it would seem, in your case.  What have  
>> you done
>> to offend the gods? :-)
>>
>
> Actually have had the same problem as James. By default, unless I'm  
> mistaken, R will save installed packages within the "R.framework"  
> framework (system-wide installation). This framework gets  
> completely replaced when a new version is installed. In my system,  
> the location of these packages is:
> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library
>
> So unless I am mistaken you have to take some action to prevent  
> packages from being installed there. I do hope I am wrong.


	I'm not sure --- I find Mac OS very confusing.  But I have the  
***impression*** that
	(on my system) by default packages get installed into

		~/Library/R/2.7/library

	i.e. into a library inside the directory tree rooted in my login  
directory.

	I don't use this --- I've created my own library ~/Rlib and have
	set up an environment variable to point to it.

	(This works properly only if you start R from the command line; for
	reasons I don't understand if you start R by clicking on the icon
	then R doesn't know about the R_LIBS environment variable.  But since
	all civilized people start R from the command line .....)

	I have no idea why youse guys' systems would eschew using ~/Library/ 
<whatever>.

		cheers,

			Rolf Turner

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