[R] How to pack my stuff into a package (library, collection)?

Tribo Laboy tribolaboy at gmail.com
Mon Apr 7 08:13:35 CEST 2008


Hello,

I am new useR, I have written some functions, which I currently use by
"source"-ing them from the files.
That's OK, but when I my functions start counting in the tens and
hundreds I'd be glad to be able to type
"help.search("my_obscure_fun")" and get a sensible reply. I also want
to be able to load them as a package at startup and not have to
"source" each one individually. I read through the "Writing R
Extensions" file, but I am overwhelmed with the vast amount of
prescribed detail that Extension Authors must follow - directory
structure, file structure, etc. Luckily, I found the "prompt"
function, which helps in writing of help-files in the form of "fill-in
 the blanks". But that's only for the help-files. Reading further, it
gets even more complicated. The user is referred to the "R
Installation and Administration" document, which says that:

If you want to build R or add-on packages from source in Windows, you
will need to collect, install and test an extensive set of tools.

These seem to include among others Perl and compiler. But R is an
interpreted and cross-platform language, I don't understand the need
for additional platform specific tools just to call a user collection
of R-files. Anyone knows of a smooth introduction to these topics?

Rgards,
TL



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