Warnes, Gregory R wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Since I changed the gregmisc package into a bundle, I almost daily
questions
> asking how to get the individual packages contained in the bundle.
>
> The standard example arises when someone attempts to install and then use
my
> 'genetics' package which depends on the 'gdata' package
contained within the
> 'gregmisc' bundle. The install succedes, but when the user does
> library(genetics) they get the error message:
>
> > library(genetics)
> Loading required package: gdata
> Error: package 'gdata' could not be loaded
>
> The user then attempts to install the package 'gdata' not realizing
that it
> is part of the (e.g.) gregmisc bundle, and can't find it. For example
>
> > install.packages("gdata")
> trying URL
> `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/PACKAGES'
> Content type `text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1' length 24149 bytes
> opened URL
> downloaded 23Kb
>
> Warning message:
> No package "gdata" on CRAN. in: download.packages(pkgs, destdir
> tmpd,
> available = available,
>
> Now the user is in trouble and sends me an error message asking how to get
> the 'gdata' package.
>
> A couple of minor changes to the package installation/listing tools would
> help alleviate this and some related problems.
>
> 1) Modify install.packages() so that the by default
"dependencies=TRUE",
> since this knows how to find dependencies within bundles.
> (Why is this FALSE by default anyway? In normal circumstances, is
> there any
> reason to install a package without installing its
> dependencies?)
>
> 2) Modify install.packages() to check if a requested package is contained
in
> a bundle, and install the bundle if so.
This is already done, at least in R-2.0.1 if "dependencies" is set to
"TRUE".
> 3) Modify CRAN.packages() to list packages contained within bundles as well
> as independent packages, so that the windows "install packages from
CRAN"
> menu item will properly show bundled packages.
You already get the packages in bundles in the "Contains" column with
CRAN.packages()[,"Contains"]
Uwe
>
> Comments?
>
> Gregory R. Warnes
> Associate Director, Non-Clinical Statistics
> Pfizer Global Research and Development
>
>
>
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