[R] Help with installing a .tar.gz package on windows

[David Winsemius]

On Jul 11, 2013, at 1:37 AM, Rolf Turner wrote:

> On 11/07/13 17:57, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>> On 11/07/2013 01:22, David Winsemius wrote: 
>>> 
>>> On Jul 10, 2013, at 4:37 PM, Lucy Leigh wrote: 
>>> 
>>>> Hi, 
>>>> I have had a look at the manual but it makes no sense to me. I have 
>>>> downloaded RTools, and the InnoSetup, 
>>>> but I don't understand how to use these to install my package? Am I 
>>>> meant to be writing commands 
>>>> in R itself, or in these other things I've downloaded? 
>>> 
>>> Since you are clearly out of your league with respect to compiling from source, now is the time to ask (again), why are you not installing the binary package? 
>>> 
>>> At the R command line just type: 
>>> 
>>> install.packages("PReMiuM")  # should default to type="win.binary" and use a CRAN mirror 
>>> 
>> 
>> Or as she seems to want to use a later version than on CRAN, to ask again why she does not use winbuilder.       
>> 
>> 
> But the winbuilder web page explicitly says:
> 
>> Please do not upload packages of other maintainers (particularly not without changing the Maintainer field to your own e-mail address, if you have permissions to do that), because the maintainer indicated in the maintainer field of the DESCRIPTION file get response from us. Please do not upload BioConductor packages or CRAN packages. Both BioConductor and CRAN do have build systems. If BioConductor or CRAN packages are not available for Windows, there is a certainly a reason and also this service won't be able to build the package properly.
> 
> So it would appear that it is *not* advisable for Ms. Leigh to use winbuilder.

I read that paragraph as saying that if a specific package , i.e. a particular numbered version, is already on CRAN or the BioC server, then do not duplicate effort. Also do not submit if a CRAN compilation resulted in an error. Especially in light of Prof. Ripley's (reiterated) advice, I did not read it as saying that a pre-release update to an existing package should not be submitted (after suitable alterations of the DESCRIPTION file.)

-- 
David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA