[R] Silencing the output of install.packages()

[Uwe Ligges]

On 01.06.2012 07:17, Tejas Kale wrote:
>   Dear Uwe
>
> Many thanks for your reply. I agree with you but I need the silencing of
> output for a particular reason.
>
> I am working on a statistical package called VOStat which uses a Java based
> GUI to get the data and parameters of the test to be executed from the
> user, creates the appropriate R script for it, runs it, and prints the
> output given by R. For a particular test, if the required library is not
> installed, the same is done dynamically without requiring any user input.
> Now the problem I face is as follows:- Suppose the user requires a
> correlation matrix of selected variables along with their p-values. For
> this, I use the 'rcorr' function of the library 'Hmisc'. If the user does
> not have 'Hmisc' available in his machine, it is automatically installed
> for him. Once the installation is done, the library is loaded and 'rcorr'
> is used for the necessary computation. But since I am presenting the entire
> output generated by the R script (which has the install function as well),
> along with the correlation matrices, the user of VOStat also gets to see
> the output of 'install.packages()', something I want to avoid.
>
> Could please suggest a workaround that could be used to get rid of the
> output?


You could try to sink() into some null device, if that does not interact 
with the GUI you are using.

Best,
Uwe Ligges



> Thanks
> Tejas
>
>
>
> On Thursday 31 May 2012 08:00 PM, Uwe Ligges wrote:
>
> On 31.05.2012 16:18, Tejas Kale wrote:
>
> Hello!
>
> Is there a way to suppress the output of 'install.packages()'? I have
> seen that the 'download.file' function has a 'quiet' option but I do
> not know how to use it.
>
>
> I do not see any good reason to allow that. A user shoudl see if software
> is being installed.
>
> Uwe ligges
>
>
>
> Thanks for your help
>
> Tejas Kale
> IUCAA, Pune
>
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