[R] Help required to install package from a website

Sun Dec 14 15:44:36 CET 2008

Hi,
I am new to R and I'm looking to perform some method comparison
analysis and would be grateful for some help regarding package
installation.
There is a package 'MethComp' that I want to use
(http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~bxc/MethComp/Courses/Sthm.2007/.)
Unfortunately I am unable to install it. I have tried numerous
approaches but to no avail. this is the first time I have tried to
install a package 'outside' of R. My operating system is Windows XP.

Here's one attempt that does not work:

where="http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~bxc/MethComp/Archive/?C=M;O=D"

install.packages("MethComp_0.4.1.tar.gz",contriburl=where)

Warning messages:
1: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... :
  Line starting '<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLI ...' is malformed!
2: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... : Line starting '<html> ...' is malformed!
3: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... : Line starting ' <head> ...' is malformed!
4: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... :
  Line starting '  <title>Index of /~ ...' is malformed!
5: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... : Line starting ' </head> ...' is malformed!
6: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... : Line starting ' <body> ...' is malformed!
7: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... :
  Line starting '<h1>Index of /~bxc/M ...' is malformed!
8: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... :
  Line starting '<pre><img src="/icon ...' is malformed!
9: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... : Line starting '<hr></pre> ...' is malformed!
10: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... :
  Line starting '<address>Apache/2.0. ...' is malformed!
11: In read.dcf(file = tmpf) ... : Line starting '</body></html> ...'
is malformed!