[R] Why install.packages(repos = X) does not override the 'repos' R option?

[peter dalgaard]

Yes. Specifically, RStudio overrides utils::install.packages() with their own 

> install.packages
function (...) 
.rs.callAs(name, hook, original, ...)
<environment: 0x7fe67a9041e8>

which is paved with good intentions, but does deflect blame towards R Core things go wrong.

-pd


> On 15 Jun 2023, at 19:42 , Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> (Sorry, forgot "Reply all" last time.)
> 
> That's an RStudio bug.  It doesn't happen if you use install.packages()
> from R.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> On 14/06/2023 9:22 a.m., Dean Attali wrote:
>> There is a default R option for which repos to install from -
>> `getOption("repos")`.
>> When installing a package using install.packages(), you can provide a
>> `repos` parameter. The default value of that parameter is
>> `getOption("repos")`. I assumed that this parameter would override the R
>> option. In other words, I assumed that if the parameter is provided, then
>> the R option would not even be looked at. But after testing this, it seems
>> this is not the case.
>> For example, running the following two lines in an R session:
>> options(repos=c(CRAN="https://BADNAME.com"))
>> install.packages("vctrs", repos = "https://cloud.R-project.org")
>> I would have expected the first line to be rendered meaningless, but in
>> fact after running the second line I see errors about the BADNAME
>> repository. This feels like a bug to me, but I'm sure there's a reason
>> behind this. Does anyone know why this is the case?
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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> 
> ______________________________________________
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-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
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