R help - May 2004 - RPM post-install scripts to update R

Hi,

Paul Johnson asked:

    While I'm on the RPM subject, can I ask an R RPM packaging question? I
    want the R RPM to install so that post install then R starts and runs
    > update.packages()

    as well as

   
install.packages(c("Design","Hmisc","lmtest","car","rgl","effects"))

    well, you get the idea. I want to add in more packages, of course. Can
    I ask what might be the best way to package this?

You can add scripts to the %post macro section.
If you look at the recent R.spec you'll see that there are already some :

    %post
    # Create directory entries for info files
    # (optional doc files, so we must check that they are installed)
    for doc in admin exts FAQ intro lang; do
       file=%{_infodir}/R-${doc}.info.gz
       if [ -e $file ]; then
          /sbin/install-info ${file} %{_infodir}/dir
       fi
    done
    # Update package indices
    %{_bindir}/R CMD perl %{_libdir}/R/share/perl/build-help.pl --htmllists
    %__cat %{_libdir}/R/library/*/CONTENTS >
    %{_libdir}/R/doc/html/search/index.txt

One way to do what you want would be to add something like the following
at the beginning:

    %post
    cat > /tmp/RPM_postinstall.R << EOF
    update.packages(ask=F)
   
install.packages(c("Design","Hmisc","lmtest","car","rgl","effects"))
    EOF
    %{_bindir}/R BATCH /tmp/RPM_postinstall.R
    echo "Please check /tmp/RPM_postinstall.Rout for the update
results"

This may not be the best way to do it. You'll need to decide what kind
of error checking to do, whether you want to run that batch command in
the background, and so on. However, this is how such tasks are often
dome in rpm spec files.

Chris

chris albert <christopher.albert at mcgill.ca> writes:
> Hi,
> 
> Paul Johnson asked:
> 
>     While I'm on the RPM subject, can I ask an R RPM packaging
question? I
>     want the R RPM to install so that post install then R starts and runs
>     > update.packages()
> 
>     as well as
> 
>    
install.packages(c("Design","Hmisc","lmtest","car","rgl","effects"))
> 
>     well, you get the idea. I want to add in more packages, of course. Can
>     I ask what might be the best way to package this?
> 
> You can add scripts to the %post macro section.
...etc...

Erm, but would you really want the result of installing an RPM to
depend on the install date and the previous configuration of the
system?

I can appreciate Paul's desire to automate, but when designing an RPM,
you also have to consider that you'd be doing things that the user
may not even know what mean. That sort of thing easily becomes a
support nightmare. 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
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