[R-SIG-Mac] Multiple R versions: set Current via symbolic link: permissions?

[Steve Lianoglou]

Hi Peter,

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:06 PM, Peter Carr <pcarr at broadinstitute.org> wrote:
> I, too, would like to run multiple versions of R, via command line, on Mac
> OS X. I have looked in vain for a clear explanation of why there can be one
> and only one 'Current' version of R running at a time.

You can dig up some info from this thread:

https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-mac/2011-September/008582.html

I believe the take home message is that if you want to do this
(running different R versions *simultaneously*), you can do some
symlink mojo (you'll find links to examples in that thread) that will
let you do so, and (for the most part), it will work.

The problem arises when you have to install R packages that need be
source compiled. This limitation holds if we are talking about running
R versions that were released as binaries on CRAN (I'm not sure if
this is true when you compile R as a framework build yourself (but my
guess is that it will still be a problem in that scenario, as well)).

I can link you straight to the email that says that (w/ more details),
but you'd probably better be served by just going through the entirety
of that thread.

Hope that helps,
-steve

-- 
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