[R-SIG-Mac] Making R packages on a Mac

[Simon Urbanek]

On Jun 8, 2011, at 10:21 PM, Murray Jorgensen wrote:

> I want to use some of my R scripts and datasets as a basis for an R package. I have been advised to avoid trying to do this under Windows so I thought I would see what I can do on my iMac, which runs Leopard.
> 
> Can any members of this group recommend Mac-oriented tutorials or similar documents that give advice on package development in the OS-X environment?
> 

Essentially the process is no different than on any other unix system and that is well documented in the R documentation. The only "special" requirement is that you should make sure you installed a reasonably recent Xcode (the current version for Leopard is Xcode 3.1.4), otherwise you should be able to follow the instructions literally.

For the actual development there is the choice of your favorite editor, and there are many options - you can check the archives of this list for those discussions. One of the more common options is emacs + ESS since that allows you to edit native code, R code and Rd documentation in the same editor.

That's pretty much all - everything else is in the R docs - you can use package.skeleton() to get you started and prompt() to document your functions ... that's pretty much all I can think off ...

Cheers,
Simon

PS: Although I would not recommend anyone to use Windows, period, the Windows R development support has been dramatically improved over the time so it's not really as discouraged as it used to be.