>>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>>> on Sat, 27 Apr 2019 15:00:20 -0400 writes:
> On 27/04/2019 2:46 p.m., Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>> On 27/04/2019 10:30 a.m., Len Weil wrote:
>>> Gentlemen,
>>>
>>> I've observed a suspected bug in R-3.60 for Windows 10.
>>>
>>> I am using the latest R version, but I have observed the same error in
all
>>> releases: alpha, beta RC and released.
>>>
>>> Also the same issue occurs in the 32 and 64 bit GUI versions. The
program
>>> header I invoke is:
>>>
>>>
>>> R version 3.6.0 Patched (2019-04-26 r76431) -- "Planting of a Tree"
>>> Copyright (C) 2019 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
>>> Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
>>>
>>> Specifically, the menu selection Packages -> install packages fails.
>>>
>>> When invoked, it simply echoes: utils:::menuInstallPkgs() and returns
the
>>> prompt.
>>>
>>>
>>> I found the underlying code with the getAnywhere function.
>>>
>>> It displays:
>>>
>>> getAnywhere(menuInstallPkgs)
>>>
>>> A single object matching 'menuInstallPkgs' was found
>>> It was found in the following places
>>> namespace:utils
>>> with value
>>>
>>> function (type = getOption("pkgType"))
>>> {
>>> install.packages(NULL, .libPaths()[1L], dependencies = NA,
>>> type = type)
>>> }
>>>
>>> <bytecode: 0x0000000016c6a730>
>>> <environment: namespace:utils>
>>>
>>>
>>> The first argument, NULL, prevents the underlying function
install.packages
>>> from working.
>>
>> No, it is documented to trigger presentation of a list of packages to
>> install. That list takes time to download from CRAN, so perhaps you are
>> just too impatient to wait for it, or perhaps it really is broken: but
>> the NULL is not the issue.
>>
> Sorry, you were right. The docs in 3.6.0 have changed: now the pkgs
> argument must be missing to trigger the menu. The NULL is not missing,
> it is interpreted as specifying no packages.
> Duncan Murdoch
Thank you, Len and Duncan;
Duncan additionally for the formal R bug report with patch PR#17556 :
https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17556
I cannot easily build R for windows from the sources either, but
committed Duncan's fix to the R-devel sources for now,
in svn rev 76434, so we can all install a binary version of
R-devel for Windows (>= rev 76434) in a day or two
from CRAN https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rdevel.html
thanks to Jeroen Ooms' autobuilder.
If that confirms the problem fixed, we will of course port it to
R 3.6.0 patched, so it will be in R 3.6.1 (which is *not* scheduled yet).
Martin Maechler
ETH Zurich and R Core Team
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