R help - Nov 2004 - How to updating R to the newest version conveniently

Dear R users
I have been using R for a while. However, I don't know what is the 
convenient way to update R to the newest version while keep all packages 
I previously downloaded and installed from CRAN, if updating all those 
packages the same will be even better.
for the time being, I reinstall all those package evrytime after updating 
the version.

Thank you.

best regards
yong

I've seen various answers to this question and there does not seem to be a
single best way.

I use a separate library for downloaded packages. In windows I set the R_LIBS
environment variable. See the usual suspects such as the appropriate FAQ and the
r-admin pdf file. On the exisitng installation I run code like this

myPackages <- .packages(all.available = TRUE,lib.loc =
"c:/progs/mylib")
save(myPackages,file = "f:\backup\settings\myPackages.rdata",compress
= T)

This stores a list of all the packages in "mylib" so that when a new
install comes I can just retrieve my backup and do a new install. When
everything is working well a new version can be downloaded in the old directory
(having cleaned it out first) and the update from CRAN option in windows can be
used. However with R2.0 there was a need to recompile packages so those that did
not have a new version did not update, but didn't work with the new version.

load("f:\backup\settings\myPackages.rdata")
install.packages(myPackages,lib = "c:/progs/mylib",
   "CRAN = http://cran.au.r-project.org/")

I can't guarantee the code as I have just put it together from what I recall
(this is how I did it at home) I don't have that sort of access to the work
PC so I have to get a tech support person to do it all for me and they have to
do it manually because they don't understand the process.

Ciao, Tom
   

-----Original Message-----
From: Yong Wang [mailto:wang at galton.uchicago.edu]
Sent: Friday, 12 November 2004 10:25 AM
To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: [R] How to updating R to the newest version conveniently


Dear R users
I have been using R for a while. However, I don't know what is the 
convenient way to update R to the newest version while keep all packages 
I previously downloaded and installed from CRAN, if updating all those 
packages the same will be even better.
for the time being, I reinstall all those package evrytime after updating 
the version.

Thank you.

best regards
yong

______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html

On what OS?  If Windows, this is covered in the rw-FAQ.  If other, it
depends on how you install R (from sources, RPMs, etc).

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Yong Wang wrote:
> I have been using R for a while. However, I don't know what is the
> convenient way to update R to the newest version while keep all packages
> I previously downloaded and installed from CRAN, if updating all those
> packages the same will be even better.
> for the time being, I reinstall all those package evrytime after updating
> the version.
> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
PLEASE do, and give basic information as requested.

-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595