R help - Feb 2011 - Dependency on R-Forge Package

In building a package, is it possible to make the package depend upon another
package that is only available on R-Forge (not CRAN). For example, by doing
something in the DESCRIPTION file
I'd like to add a dependency to my package such that when the user install
my package it will automatically install this other package from R-forge as
well.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Damian


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On 17.02.2011 15:29, Damian Betebenner wrote:
> In building a package, is it possible to make the package depend upon
another package that is only available on R-Forge (not CRAN). For example, by
doing something in the DESCRIPTION file
> I'd like to add a dependency to my package such that when the user
install my package it will automatically install this other package from R-forge
as well.

Not completely, the user has to choose R-forge as a repository (which is 
not the default but easily selectable).

Uwe Ligges



>
> Any help greatly appreciated.
>
> Damian
>
>
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>
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Damian Betebenner <dbetebenner <at> nciea.org> writes:
> 
> In building a package, is it possible to make the package depend upon
another
package that is only available
> on R-Forge (not CRAN). For example, by doing something in the DESCRIPTION
file
> I'd like to add a dependency to my package such that when the user
install my
package it will automatically
> install this other package from R-forge as well.
> 
Not strictly my business, but as an R-Forge developer I say that you should not
depend on a pacakge in R-Forge. If a package is in the R-Forge it probably is
(a) not ready for release, or (b) unstable, or (c) both. This means that you
should not depend on the package. 

If you think that neither of these is true, but the package is both ready for
the release and stable, you should urge its developer to release (a stable
version of) the package in CRAN.

Cheers, Jari Oksanen