R devel - Sep 2013 - Capture output of install.packages (pipe system2)

Is there any way to capture output (both stdout and stderr) from
install.packages? Solutions like sink and capture.output don't work
because the install.packages calls out to system2 which is executed in
a separate process:

    test <- capture.output(install.packages("MASS"))

The system2 function does have arguments stdout and stderr but afaik
these cannot be controlled via install.packages. I'm a bit reluctant
to start rolling my own version of install.packages just for this
reason.

Is there any way to somehow grab this output? Or alternatively, is
there a way to make R pipe stdout and stderr from system2 in such a
way that they can be captured with sink or capture.output in the R
parent process?

On 13-09-23 2:17 PM, Jeroen Ooms wrote:
> Is there any way to capture output (both stdout and stderr) from
> install.packages? Solutions like sink and capture.output don't work
> because the install.packages calls out to system2 which is executed in
> a separate process:
>
>      test <- capture.output(install.packages("MASS"))
>
> The system2 function does have arguments stdout and stderr but afaik
> these cannot be controlled via install.packages. I'm a bit reluctant
> to start rolling my own version of install.packages just for this
> reason.
>
> Is there any way to somehow grab this output? Or alternatively, is
> there a way to make R pipe stdout and stderr from system2 in such a
> way that they can be captured with sink or capture.output in the R
> parent process?
See the recent thread 
<https://mailman.stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2013-September/067552.html>
for an approach to this.

Duncan Murdoch