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

[Michael Dewey]

At 23:49 11/07/2013, Lucy Leigh wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>Thanks to everyone for all the advice. I should have been clearer in 
>my first email, the version of 'PReMiuM' I have is not
>the one available on CRAN at the moment, but a version I was sent by 
>one of the authors, Silvia Liveriani, with a small bug fixed.
>I don't know if this is the same as the next version to be released, 
>or whether the next will be different again. I asked about
>compiling it myself because I didn't want to bother the authors 
>again if doing so was going to be a simple task I could
>do myself, which I now realise is not the case.
>
>I think the best option seems to me to be to contact the authors 
>again and request permission to send the version to
>winbuilder to be compiled for me.

Lucy
The advantage of following Bill's instructions is that you will then 
know how to install your own packages. Eventually when you have been 
using R for a while you will have all sorts of useful functions and 
one day you will think 'What I need is to make a package lucytools to 
keep them together and documented.' This is easier than it looks, I 
wish I had done it much earlier (except obviously I did not call mine 
lucytools).


>Thank you also Bill Dunlap for your detailed instructions on how to 
>use RTools, I am sure this will come in handy for me
>in the future too, and I appreciate you taking the time to write it 
>all out for me.
>
>Regards,
>Lucy Leigh
>
>
> >>> Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> 12/07/2013 6:03 am >>>
>On 11/07/2013 20:21, David Winsemius wrote:
> >
> > 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.)
>
>You read correctly, and indeed this is what the R manuals and the rw-FAQ
>say.  This is all assuming that Lucy does have Silvia's (the author of
>PReMiuM) permission, but given that she has a unreleased version, that
>seems eminently reasonable.
>
>I am CCing Uwe Ligges (the provider of the winbuilder service) in case
>he wants to expand the statement.  Although winbuilder does not have a
>large capacity, new hardware was acquired fairly recently and it is not
>as hard-pressed as it was.
>
>In the particular case of PReMiuM compiling is tricky (it needs the
>right version of Boost).  And because we've been here before, I know
>that winbuilder has a suitable version of Boost.
>
>An alternative would be for Silvia to submit that version to winbuilder
>and send the link to Lucy to download.
>
>--
>Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
>Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
>University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
>1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
>Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Michael Dewey
info at aghmed.fsnet.co.uk
http://www.aghmed.fsnet.co.uk/home.html