[R-SIG-Mac] install two versions of R on a Mac

[Steven McKinney]

After installing the Mac GUI R:

If I navigate to the "Applications" directory in the Mac Finder file browser,
and <Control>-click (or right-click) on the R.app icon, a contextual menu
pops up - I select "Duplicate" and a second "R copy.app" is created.
I can then double-click to run that and have two copies of R up and running with
the Mac R gui interface.  

I have yet to uncover any problem with doing this,
Simon Urbanek can hopefully comment if there is any problem with this.

So this appears to be one way to allow multiple instances of the
same version of Mac GUI R to run.

Alternatively, if I run the following command from a "Terminal" window

$ /Applications/R.app/Contents/MacOS/R &
$ /Applications/R.app/Contents/MacOS/R &
$ /Applications/R.app/Contents/MacOS/R &

I get several instances of the same version of the Mac GUI R up and running.

So these are two methods I use to invoke multiple instances of various
programs on my Mac.  

Of course you need to be clear about where each instance is writing
its data, so for example if you quit and save the R session data objects
to the default .RData file, you will overwrite the .RData file from another
session instance as they will all have the same working directory - so you need to 
save results carefully.  Other than that, I have not seen any problems with 
running multiple instances in these ways.

If anyone knows of other potential problems, I'd appreciate hearing about them.

HTH

Steven McKinney

Statistician
Molecular Oncology and Breast Cancer Program
British Columbia Cancer Research Centre


________________________________________
From: r-sig-mac-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch [r-sig-mac-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Steve Lianoglou [mailinglist.honeypot at gmail.com]
Sent: August 5, 2010 1:08 PM
To: Mike Lawrence
Cc: Irina Foss; r-sig-mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] install two versions of R on a Mac

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Mike Lawrence <Mike.Lawrence at dal.ca> wrote:
> Do you mean you want two different versions of R on the same machine
> (eg. R-2.11.1 & R-2.10.1)? Or do you mean you simply want to run
> multiple sessions of the same version at once? If the latter, you
> simply install one version and open multiple terminal sessions.

And if you (Irina) are after the former, the only way I know how to
run two different versions of R *simultaneously* is to have one
installed by source (ie. not via the R.pkg which installs into
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework) due to the requirement of a valid
"Versions/Current" symlink in that R.framework directory.

-steve

>
> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Irina Foss <Irina.Foss at thurso.uhi.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am trying to install two versions of R on a Mac OS laptop to run almost at the same time. I tried to use pkgutil--forget in the terminal but it did not seem to make any changes.
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Irina
>>
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Mike Lawrence
> Graduate Student
> Department of Psychology
> Dalhousie University
>
> Looking to arrange a meeting? Check my public calendar:
> http://tr.im/mikes_public_calendar
>
> ~ Certainty is folly... I think. ~
>
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--
Steve Lianoglou
Graduate Student: Computational Systems Biology
 | Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
 | Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Contact Info: http://cbio.mskcc.org/~lianos/contact

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