R devel - Jul 2021 - Feature request: Change default library path on Windows

Hello,

I'd like to propose moving the default library install location on Windows
from:
%USERPROFILE%/Documents/R
to some other location such as:
%USERPROFILE%/R

For many users the Documents folder is backed up or synchronized.
Installing libraries thrashes Documents, and it causes synchronization
issues with Dropbox (I confirm this one), OneDrive, and users with
Network IT policies.

The vast majority of R users won't touch that folder and don't need it
backed up. And, its contents are not really "documents".

There are many blog posts and websites with people complaining about
it or offering workarounds that involve hand editing setting and
environment files, which reduces R's usability and accessibility.
*
https://community.rstudio.com/t/help-regarding-package-installation-renviron-rprofile-r-libs-r-libs-site-and-r-libs-user-oh-my/13888/5
* https://accelebrate.com/library/how-to-articles/r-rstudio-library
*
https://community.rstudio.com/t/r-studio-library-installation-directory/30725/2
* https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/1418712098444546057
* https://twitter.com/JoeHilgard/status/1419025358070878210

This change should not interfere with any project environment managers
like renv. It should just change the global default for Windows R
users.
Also, I believe that on Mac it is not in Documents, but it's in the
equivalent of %USERPROFILE%/R.

Thanks,
Steve Haroz

On 24 July 2021 at 15:53, Steve Haroz wrote:
| I'd like to propose moving the default library install location on Windows
from:
| %USERPROFILE%/Documents/R
| to some other location such as:
| %USERPROFILE%/R

Can you not set .Library.site in R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site (or maybe setting
R_LIBS_SITE either in R_HOME/etc/Renviron.site, or system-wide as an env
variable so that you do not have to copy R_HOME/etc/Renviron.site once you
upgrade R).

See 'R Installation and Administration: 6.2 Managing libraries' for
more:
https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-admin.html#Managing-libraries

Dirk

-- 
https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org

On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 12:15 AM Steve Haroz <steve.haroz at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to propose moving the default library install location on
Windows from:
> %USERPROFILE%/Documents/R
> to some other location such as:
> %USERPROFILE%/R
>
> For many users the Documents folder is backed up or synchronized.
> Installing libraries thrashes Documents, and it causes synchronization
> issues with Dropbox (I confirm this one), OneDrive, and users with
> Network IT policies.
>
> The vast majority of R users won't touch that folder and don't need
it
> backed up. And, its contents are not really "documents".
I very much support this request. R's behavior of defaulting HOME to
an unusual (legacy) directory is also a source of bugs and
interoperability problems:

R packages that interface c/c++ libraries that require a user config
file (libssh, libgit2, etc) sometimes cannot find the user config
because it gets stored on a different location than expected. A good
example is 'git'. The 'git for windows' command line utility
stores my
user config in C:\users\Jeroen\.gitconfig. However, for R packages
that link to libgit2 (e.g. git2r, gert) the user config gets
loaded/stored from C:\users\Jeroen\Documents\.gitconfig because
libgit2 inherits the R home directory. Having 2 different git
configurations is obviously confusing for users.

Another problem is that when you start R from "windows bash" or the
msys2 shell (including "git for windows" or rtools40), the
"~"
directory is different than in RGui. This is because these shells do set
the HOME variable (to the usual value), and R inherits that.

For example: when I start R in RGui for Windows I see:

  > normalizePath("~")
  [1] "C:\\Users\\jeroen\\Documents"

But when I start R or Rterm from the "git for windows" shell we get:

  > normalizePath("~")
  [1] "C:\\Users\\jeroen"

An ambiguous home directory is obviously going to break R code that
refers to paths in your home.

Because these problems affect all Windows users, I think the benefits
of fixing the default behavior easily outweigh the
backward-compatibility and "there is a documented workaround"
arguments.

At the very least it would be nice if there were a function that displays all
the locations/paths currently being used in R.

On Sat, Jul 24, 2021 at 6:15 PM Steve Haroz <steve.haroz at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to propose moving the default library install location on
Windows from:
> %USERPROFILE%/Documents/R
> to some other location such as:
> %USERPROFILE%/R
>
> For many users the Documents folder is backed up or synchronized.
> Installing libraries thrashes Documents, and it causes synchronization
> issues with Dropbox (I confirm this one), OneDrive, and users with
> Network IT policies.
>
> The vast majority of R users won't touch that folder and don't need
it
> backed up. And, its contents are not really "documents".
>
> There are many blog posts and websites with people complaining about
> it or offering workarounds that involve hand editing setting and
> environment files, which reduces R's usability and accessibility.
> *
https://community.rstudio.com/t/help-regarding-package-installation-renviron-rprofile-r-libs-r-libs-site-and-r-libs-user-oh-my/13888/5
> * https://accelebrate.com/library/how-to-articles/r-rstudio-library
> *
https://community.rstudio.com/t/r-studio-library-installation-directory/30725/2
> * https://twitter.com/sharoz/status/1418712098444546057
> * https://twitter.com/JoeHilgard/status/1419025358070878210
>
> This change should not interfere with any project environment managers
> like renv. It should just change the global default for Windows R
> users.
> Also, I believe that on Mac it is not in Documents, but it's in the
> equivalent of %USERPROFILE%/R.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve Haroz
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel


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