[R] update from tar.gz in local directory on Unix/Solaris

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Christian Hoffmann wrote:

> Hi list,
>
> I have not been successful in finding out from the available
> documentation how under Unix/Solaris to update a packages which I
> downloaded from the net as the original *.tar.gz and stored in a local
> file, say

What does 'update' mean here?  Do you want to install those, or install 
later versions from CRAN, or what?

update.packages() is about updating from a repository, which you do not 
have, AFAICS.

> (1) home/woodstock/hoffmacw/R/Sources/pack.tar.gz

I presume all your paths are missing a leading / ?

> A lot of installed libraries are residing in
>
> (2) home/woodstock/hoffmacw/R/library/
>
> but it is unclear to me, how to proceed, since in "Usage"
>
> update.packages(lib.loc = NULL, repos = CRAN,
>
> it says
>
> "lib.loc 	character vector describing the location of R library trees to
> search through (and update packages therein)."
>
> CRAN packages are residing in
>
> (3) usr/local/lib/R/library/
>
> How should I state my wish for "pack" to reside in (3) which I cannot
> manipulate directly (I am not an administrator).

You can state it, but it cannot be fulfilled. It would be lib.loc=.Library 
or lib.loc="/usr/local/lib/R/library/"

> Is
>
> >
> install.packages("/home/woodstock/hoffmacw/R/Sources/pack.tar.gz",repos=NULL)
>
> correct?

Probably not, as you need to give a library tree to install into, one with 
suitable permissions.  To give a real example,

install.packages("/users/ripley/R/packages/contrib/ash_1.0-9.tar.gz",
                  lib="~/R/library", repos=NULL)

-- 
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