R devel - Jan 2013 - maintaining multiple R versions

(somewhat related to thread [Rd] R CMD check not reading R_LIBS )

For many years I have maintained R versions by building R (./configure ; 
make)  in a directory indicating the version number, putting the 
directory/bin on my path, and setting R_LIBS_SITE.

It seems only one version can easily be installing in /usr/bin, and in 
any case that requires root, so I do not do that. There may be an 
advantage to installing somewhere in a directory with the version 
number, but that does not remove the need to set my path. (If there is 
an advantage to installing I would appreciate someone explaining briefly 
what it is.)

My main question is whether there is a better ways to maintaining 
multiple versions, in some way that lets users choose which one they are 
using?

(The only problem I am aware of with my current way of doing this is:
if the system has some R in /usr/bin then I have to set my preferred 
version first, which means shell commands like "man" find R's
pager
first, and do not work.)

Thanks,
Paul

Have you looked at Environment Modules (http://modules.sourceforge.net/)?  I use
it to maintain multiple versions of R.  Users can choose their default and
switch among them at the command line.

Aaron

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 02:04:13PM -0500, Paul Gilbert
wrote:
> (somewhat related to thread [Rd] R CMD check not reading R_LIBS )
> 
> For many years I have maintained R versions by building R
> (./configure ; make)  in a directory indicating the version number,
> putting the directory/bin on my path, and setting R_LIBS_SITE.
> 
> It seems only one version can easily be installing in /usr/bin, and
> in any case that requires root, so I do not do that. There may be an
> advantage to installing somewhere in a directory with the version
> number, but that does not remove the need to set my path. (If there
> is an advantage to installing I would appreciate someone explaining
> briefly what it is.)
> 
> My main question is whether there is a better ways to maintaining
> multiple versions, in some way that lets users choose which one they
> are using?
> 
> (The only problem I am aware of with my current way of doing this is:
> if the system has some R in /usr/bin then I have to set my preferred
> version first, which means shell commands like "man" find R's
pager
> first, and do not work.)
> 
> Thanks,
> Paul
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
-- 
Aaron A. King, Ph.D.
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Mathematics
Center for the Study of Complex Systems
University of Michigan
GPG Public Key: 0x15780975