[R-pkg-devel] Problem with loading package "devtools" from CRAN.

[Berwin A Turlach]

G'day Rolf,

On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 01:21:15 +0000
Rolf Turner <rolfturner using posteo.net> wrote:

> Previously I got an error message from
> 
>     install.packages("devtools",lib="/home/rolf/Rlib")  
>  
> but now of course I cannot reproduce it.

Presumably the install.packages() invocation did not produce an error
message but a subsequent "library(devtools)" did?

I am not sure how remotes::install_github() behaves.  Are you using R
directly or via RStudio?  RStudio redefines the behaviour of
install.packages() so I am not sure what would happen if you type that
command into an R session running in RStudio.

As far as I remember, R's install.packages(), as you would invoke it if
you used R directly, installs the requested packages and any of its
(Depends/Imports) dependencies if these dependencies do not exist in
your libraries.  As devtool's dependencies must have existed on your
system, your command only re-installed devtools but none of the
dependencies.  

And it must be one of the dependencies that uses compiled code and
created the problem, as a "packageDescription("devtools")" actually
shows "NeedsCompilation: no".

You should really execute an
	update.packages(lib="/home/rolf/Rlib", checkBuilt=TRUE)
whenever you upgrade your R version, definitely when the upgrade
involves changing the major/minor version. 

Cheers,

	Berwin