R devel - Feb 2014 - suggested addition to 'install.packages' help file

I suggest that there be an additional sentence
in the explanation for the 'repos' argument in
the help file for 'install.packages':

If the repository is on a local drive, then the
string should begin with \code{file:}, e.g.,
\code{"file:J:/Rrepos"}.


Perhaps I'm missing some subtlety, but it makes
things work in my case.

Pat

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Patrick Burns
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On 06/02/2014 18:25, Patrick Burns wrote:
> I suggest that there be an additional sentence
> in the explanation for the 'repos' argument in
> the help file for 'install.packages':
>
> If the repository is on a local drive, then the
> string should begin with \code{file:}, e.g.,
> \code{"file:J:/Rrepos"}.
>
>
> Perhaps I'm missing some subtlety, but it makes
> things work in my case.
You are (more than one).  The help says

    repos: character vector, the base URL(s) of the repositories to use,

A file:// scheme *is* a URL, but how to specify it correctly is 
described under ?url.  'Local drive' is a not a portable concept, but a 
repository on a file system mounted on the same machine may also be 
accessible via a http:// scheme.


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
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