[R-pkg-devel] Has GitHub been used as a CRAN-style repository?

[Ben Bolker]

   Check out the drat package.

On 16-04-27 09:00 AM, Bruce Hoff wrote:
> Dear All:
> 
> devtools::install_github() is great but, as I understand it, limited to
> installing from source code.  Is there any precedent for using a public
> repository like GitHub as a CRAN-style repository, so that one can install
> like so:
> 
> install.packages("mypackage", repos= "https://github.com/myrepo/mypackage")
> 
> ?
> This would allow the distribution of packages that need compilation without
> requiring that the user set up a build system and would leverage R's
> ability to find and install dependencies (by stringing together multiple
> URLs in the 'repos' parameter).  Of course there's a greater burden on the
> package provider, who has to build their package for Mac and Windows.
> 
> It strikes me that this could be a good way to decentralize CRAN, allowing
> it to be maintained by package owners rather than a central authority.
> 
> I searched around but could not find examples of people using Github in
> this way.
> 
> Bruce Hoff
> Sage Bionetworks
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
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