> From: Prof Brian Ripley > > On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, Kjetil Brinchmann Halvorsen wrote: > > > Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > > > > >install/update.packages() in R-devel has been enhanced in > a few ways, > > >notably to handle multiple repositories, and to allow > packages to be > > >reinstalled under the current version of R. > > > > > >1) Currently they will ask if you want to delete the > downloaded files (if > > >any) *provided* destdir was not specified. In that case it uses a > > >subdirectory of the per-session temporary directory, so > the files will be > > >deleted at the end of the R session anyway. > > > > > >We had a request to make the questioning optional. I > propose to remove it > > >altogether, and either > > > > > >a) delete the downloaded files at the end of install.packages or > > >b) leave them in the per-session directory to be deleted > at the end of the > > >session. > > > > > >that is to force answer 'y' or 'n' respectively. Does > anyone see any > > >problems with a)? > > > > > > > > > > > I would prefer b), as I am downloading from the Rgui menu > and then moves > > downloaded packages > > to a c:\download... area which I use to burn CD-roms I > distribute to > > many people. If a) is choosen I guess > > I could learn to use it from the command line, though. What is the > > problem with b)? > > Potentially leaving 1Gb or so of files in a temporary directory. So > probably no big deal.
My personal preference would be a). Kjetil's usage seems like a bit of an abuse, and one should be able to write something that does that specific task (e.g., modify update.packages() to something called download.packages()), rather than relying on a function in R that's meant for something else. One thing that concerns me a bit (I haven't check whether the concern is warranted) is package dependency: If the new version of a package on CRAN requires, e.g., a newer version of R than what the user has, what happens then? Andy > Brian > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 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 > > ______________________________________________ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
