[R-SIG-Mac] upgradeable R layout

[Simon Urbanek]

On Nov 14, 2008, at 10:05 , David Winsemius wrote:

> I am attempting to follow this set of directions and am hung up. I  
> will trim the original message and describe what I have done so far:
> On Nov 13, 2008, at 8:48 PM, Steven McKinney wrote:
>>
>>
>> I installed R from Simon Urbanek's website - always up to date -
>> http://r.research.att.com/
>> using the method
>>
>> Leopard builds can be installed as follows - paste in Terminal (for R
>> 2.8.x):
>> curl -s http://r.research.att.com/R-2.8-branch-leopard-universal.tar.gz
>> | sudo tar fvxz - -C /
>>
>> after setting up the various compilers and other software discussed
>> in the "Tools for R Development" and "Other binaries and tools"
>> sections.
>
> The installation of the Tools is the sticking point:
>
> I am attemptng to follow the directions at http://r.research.att.com/tools/
>
> Checked Xcode and finding that it was 3.0 and seeing that 3.1.1 was  
> available, download and installed  a 1GB file. Checked to see that  
> Xcode.app had been updated.
>
> Downloaded and installed the gfortran package from the ATT website.
>
> copied "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin" to Terminal line.
>
> Followed "Tools on CRAN" link:
>

NOTE: Most users don't need to even look at the tools page! It is  
there mainly to allow experienced users to pick and choose some  
optional tools they may like. If you are not sure that you need any of  
it, the answer is you don't. The first two items (gfortran and tcltk)  
come bundled with R so you likely have them already and the devpack is  
only for people that want to build their own R and re-create the  
environment that the CRAN build machine is using.


> devpack4-darwin8-bin4.tar.gz was download via Firefox to /Users/ 
> Downloads/ and automatically expanded to a folder with Library and  
> usr descendants within /Downloads/ which I think is not the correct  
> location. The contents of Library were apparently destined for / 
> Applications/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/ so I dragged the  
> fontconfig file there.
>
> Viewing the world through the Mac Finder it is unclear where the / 
> usr/local folder contents are supposed to go. There is probably a  
> Unix command that will safely copy the contents of the /usr/ folder  
> currently residing in /Downlaods to where the "true" /usr/ folder  
> resides. So I opened a Terminal window and typed:
>
> cp  /usr/local/
>
> Can I now just type:
> cp /Users/davidwinsemius/Downloads/devpack4-darwin8-bin4/usr/local/* .
>
> ... and get all those new files put in the corresponding descendant  
> folders?
>

No, use the same procedure you used for the R installation:
curl -s http://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/tools/devpack4-darwin8-bin4.tar.gz 
  \
sudo tar fvxz - -C /

Cheers,
S