On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, John Marsland wrote:
> I was reading with interest Prof. Ripley's article in the May 2005
> edition R News entitled "Packages and their Management in
R2.1.0".
>
> Does anybody know if it is possible to install.packages() directly
> from a Subversion repository; I thought it might be possible to add
> an option method="svn" to the function?
It's download.file that is used to retrieve packages (see the help file).
You would need a suitable client and a suitable syntax to specify the tree
you wanted, but it would be possible.
I would be surprised if you put actual sources of a package into svn:
R CMD build both adds things and changes the DESCRIPTION file.
> Ideally, one might want to add the Subversion version number to the R
> package version in the DESCRIPTION file for consistency.
You are allowed to do that: just add a field for your own use. The vast
majority of packages are not under svn, of course, and I tag a released
package with its released number (just as the R sources do).
--
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