[R] Packages sometimes don't update, but no error or warning is thrown

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 14/02/2024 5:50 a.m., Martin Maechler wrote:
>>>>>> Berwin A Turlach
>>>>>>      on Wed, 14 Feb 2024 11:47:41 +0800 writes:
>>>>>> Berwin A Turlach
>>>>>>      on Wed, 14 Feb 2024 11:47:41 +0800 writes:
> 
>      > G'day Philipp,
> 
>      > On Tue, 13 Feb 2024 09:59:17 +0100 gernophil--- via R-help
>      > <r-help using r-project.org> wrote:
> 
>      >> this question is related to this
>      >> (https://community.rstudio.com/t/packages-are-not-updating/166214/3),
>      >> [...]
> 
>      >> To sum it up: If I am updating packages (be it via
>      >> Bioconductor or CRAN) some packages simply don’t update,
>      >> [...]
> 
>      >> I would expect any kind of message that the package will
>      >> not be updated, since no newer binary is available or a
>      >> prompt, if I want to compile from source.
> 
>      > RStudio is doing its own thing for some task, including
>      > 'install.packages()' (and for some reasons, at least on
>      > the platforms on which I use RStudio, RStudio calls
>      > 'install.packages()' and not 'update.packages()' when an
>      > update is requested via the GUI). See:
> 
>      RStudio> install.packages
>      > function (...)  .rs.callAs(name, hook, original, ...)
>      > <environment: 0x55bab9293998>
> 
>      > compared to:
> 
>      R> install.packages
>      > function (pkgs, lib, repos = getOption("repos"),
>      > contriburl = contrib.url(repos, type), method, available =
>      > NULL, destdir = NULL, dependencies = NA, type =
>      > getOption("pkgType"), configure.args =
>      > getOption("configure.args"), configure.vars =
>      > getOption("configure.vars"), clean = FALSE, Ncpus =
>      > getOption("Ncpus", 1L), verbose = getOption("verbose"),
>      > libs_only = FALSE, INSTALL_opts, quiet = FALSE,
>      > keep_outputs = FALSE, ...)  { [...]
> 
> 
>      > So if you use Install/Update in the Packages tab of
>      > RStudio and do not experience the behaviour you are
>      > expecting, it is something that you need to discuss with
>      > Posit, not with R. :)
> 
>      >> However, the only message I get is: ``` trying URL
>      >> '<url_to_package>'
> 
>      > The package name has the version number encoded in it, so
>      > theoretical you should be able to tell at this point
>      > whether the package that is downloaded is the version that
>      > is already installed, hence no update will happen.
> 
>      > Best wishes,
> 
>      > 	Berwin
> 
> 
> Yes, thank's a lot, Berwin.
> 
> Indeed I've raised the fact that RStudio
> hides R's own install.packages() from the user  and uses its
> own, undocumented one ... this has been the case for quite a few years.
> I found out during teaching --- one of the few times, I use
> RStudio to use R... in another case where RStudio's
> install.packages() behaved differently than R's.
> 
> I'm pretty sure this is reason for quite a bit of confusion...

Did they ignore your bug report?

Duncan Murdoch