[R] Binary packages on R-forge (was reference on contr.helmert and typo on its help page.)

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Gavin Simpson wrote:

> On Mon, 2009-11-09 at 19:31 -0600, Peng Yu wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 7:32 PM, John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>>> Dear Peng,
>>>
>>> I'm tempted to try to get an entry in the fortunes package but will instead
>>> try to answer your questions directly:
>>
>> I can not install 'fortunes'. What are the fortunes packages about?
>>> install.packages("fortunes", repos="http://R-Forge.R-project.org")
>> Warning: unable to access index for repository
>> http://R-Forge.R-project.org/bin/macosx/leopard/contrib/2.9
>> Warning message:
>> In getDependencies(pkgs, dependencies, available, lib) :
>>   package ‘fortunes’ is not available
>
> It is on CRAN. just do:
>
> install.packages("fortunes")
>
> Choose a repository near to you and it should install.
>
> There appears to be a problem with R-forge and Mac OsX binaries. The
> code you show above works for me on linux and R2.9.x

My understanding is that R-forge only supports binary builds for 
current versions of R, so for both Windows and Mac OS X that means R 
2.10.x only.  Others can use type="source" (the default under Linux), 
but this is another reason to keep your R up-to-date (as the posting 
guide mentions): as my Mac is up-to-date this worked for me.

(The posting guide also mentions using a sensible subject line, so 
I've changed this one.)

-- 
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