R devel - Jun 2008 - RFC: Add 'postinstall' hook to R CMD INSTALL ?

I have been mulling over an idea I had meant to flesh out with a prototype
but haven't gotten around to.   So here it goes in the abstract without
working code:


What:  Extend 'R CMD INSTALL' to also work on sources that are not
strictly
       CRAN packages

Why:  'R CMD INSTALL' is very good and very successful for CRAN
packages. It
      has solved most issues related to configure, make, ... etc by relying
      on pre-computed and stored values.

      CRAN is also very good as a mirror network to distribute content that
      is easy to obtain by useRs.
       
      So there are cases where I'd like to use CRAN / R CMD INSTALL to work
      on non-package code. Two case are

        i)  littler which is easy to 'configure; make; make install' but
            would want to live in $PREFIX/bin -- and I need to copy it there

        ii) RCpp which is a library / glue code making live easier for C++
  	    code to interface with R; also easy to configure but I'd then
  	    libRcpp.{so,a} to be in $PREFIX/bin -- and I need to copy it
	    there

How:  Similar to 'cleanup' we could have a script 'postinstall'
in the
      top-level directory, and if present, R would execute it.


As I'm the one with the itch, I'd be happy to work on code towards
implementing this -- but before I go overboard with it, I'd love to hear
comments, suggestions, questions, ...  It is worthwhile? Is it feasible?
What did I overlook?

Thanks, Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.

Isn't this what Type: Frontend is for?  That gives you complete control 
and would seem appropriate for both of your examples.

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
>
> I have been mulling over an idea I had meant to flesh out with a prototype
> but haven't gotten around to.   So here it goes in the abstract without
> working code:
>
>
> What:  Extend 'R CMD INSTALL' to also work on sources that are not
strictly
>       CRAN packages
>
> Why:  'R CMD INSTALL' is very good and very successful for CRAN
packages. It
>      has solved most issues related to configure, make, ... etc by relying
>      on pre-computed and stored values.
>
>      CRAN is also very good as a mirror network to distribute content that
>      is easy to obtain by useRs.
>
>      So there are cases where I'd like to use CRAN / R CMD INSTALL to
work
>      on non-package code. Two case are
>
>        i)  littler which is easy to 'configure; make; make install'
but
>            would want to live in $PREFIX/bin -- and I need to copy it there
>
>        ii) RCpp which is a library / glue code making live easier for C++
>  	    code to interface with R; also easy to configure but I'd then
>  	    libRcpp.{so,a} to be in $PREFIX/bin -- and I need to copy it
> 	    there
I hope not in 'bin' -- I am not sure if you mean $PREFIX/lib[64] or 
$R_HOME/lib?
> How:  Similar to 'cleanup' we could have a script
'postinstall' in the
>      top-level directory, and if present, R would execute it.
>
>
> As I'm the one with the itch, I'd be happy to work on code towards
> implementing this -- but before I go overboard with it, I'd love to
hear
> comments, suggestions, questions, ...  It is worthwhile? Is it feasible?
> What did I overlook?
>
> Thanks, Dirk
>
> -- 
> Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595