R help - Nov 2009 - "Safe" way to automatically install required packages...

R-helpers:

    I'm working on an r-package that I want to make as easy-to-use as 
possible for a novice R-user, which includes automatically installing 
required packages.   I, myself, am a novice R-packager, so the solution 
I came up with was to embed:

print("Loading required packages...")
if (!require("reshape")) { install.packages("reshape") }
if (!require("reshape")) {
    print("Could not install package 'reshape', please contact your
sysadmin.")
    return()
}

    in the code proper, and put together the package using 
package.skeleton() and R CMD build.

    I'm guessing there's a better way to do this -- any suggestions? 

--j

-- 

Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
Center for Spatial Technologies and Remote Sensing (CSTARS)
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
The Barn, Room 250N
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: 415-763-5476
AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307

If you package "depends" on another package, it will be automatically
installed.

Hadley

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Jonathan Greenberg
<greenberg at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> R-helpers:
>
> ? I'm working on an r-package that I want to make as easy-to-use as
possible
> for a novice R-user, which includes automatically installing required
> packages. ? I, myself, am a novice R-packager, so the solution I came up
> with was to embed:
>
> print("Loading required packages...")
> if (!require("reshape")) { install.packages("reshape")
}
> if (!require("reshape")) {
> ? print("Could not install package 'reshape', please contact
your
> sysadmin.")
> ? return()
> }
>
> ? in the code proper, and put together the package using package.skeleton()
> and R CMD build.
>
> ? I'm guessing there's a better way to do this -- any suggestions?
> --j
>
> --
>
> Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
> Postdoctoral Scholar
> Center for Spatial Technologies and Remote Sensing (CSTARS)
> University of California, Davis
> One Shields Avenue
> The Barn, Room 250N
> Davis, CA 95616
> Phone: 415-763-5476
> AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>


-- 
http://had.co.nz/

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Jonathan Greenberg
<greenberg at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> R-helpers:
>
> ? I'm working on an r-package that I want to make as easy-to-use as
possible
> for a novice R-user, which includes automatically installing required
> packages. ? I, myself, am a novice R-packager, so the solution I came up
> with was to embed:
>
> print("Loading required packages...")
> if (!require("reshape")) { install.packages("reshape")
}
> if (!require("reshape")) {
> ? print("Could not install package 'reshape', please contact
your
> sysadmin.")
> ? return()
> }
>
> ? in the code proper, and put together the package using package.skeleton()
> and R CMD build.
>
> ? I'm guessing there's a better way to do this -- any suggestions?
> --j
Place the dependencies of your package in a comma-seperated list in the

  depends:

field of the DESCRIPTION file. When a user runs install.packages(
'yourPackage', dependencies = T ), R will take care of downloading and
installing the dependencies

-Charlie