Re: [R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-02 Thread Simon Urbanek
The current builds now contains tests. As Brian noted size is probably not an 
issue anymore so it was the easiest to simply run install-tests in the build.

Cheers,
Simon


On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:

 Hi Simon,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
 
 Marc,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
 
 Hi all,
 
 I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux and for 
 the past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I believe, there have 
 been functions available in the 'tools' package to run post-installation 
 tests of the base and recommended packages. These parallel the post-build 
 from source 'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They 
 run the help file examples, more extensive package specific tests as well 
 as vignette code when present.
 
 When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to install the 
 required files to run the more extensive package tests after the initial 
 build, rather then just the examples in the help files.
 
 On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the pre-built 
 binary, to install these additional test files.
 
 When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider that path, I 
 did not see an option to install these test files and I don't see any CLI 
 functionality to replicate the installation of the test files that would be 
 performed when building from source. A search of the R.framework tree did 
 not yield any indication that the files are present, which would normally 
 be in a 'tests' folder (eg. see 
 https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).
 
 So, are these files not installed or made available when using the OSX 
 binary or am I missing something?
 
 Yes, they are not available in the binary distribution. You can still use 
 make install-tests when compiling your own R, and since they are 
 arch-independent you can pick any architecture for that.
 
 It would be certainly possible to include the test files in the 
 distribution, but so far you are the first person asking about that, so it 
 doesn't seem prudent. However, it would be even easier to just add a 
 separate tar ball of tests to the http://R.reasearch.att.com site for 
 nightly builds if that would satisfy your needs.
 
 Cheers,
 Simon
 
 
 Thanks for your reply and confirmation. I can certainly continue, as I have 
 done, to build R from source. In my case, I build 32 bit R, as I don't have a 
 need for the additional memory address space provided by 64 bits, even though 
 I have 8Gb on my MBP. It takes about 20 minutes to build and another 40 to 
 run the full suite of tests.
 
 I was just doing some forward looking, considering alternatives to building 
 from source and instead using the OSX binaries, both the stable release on 
 CRAN and the patched versions that you kindly provide at the URL you list 
 above. There are benefits to using the official binaries of course.
 
 Providing a tarball of the tests folder, matching svn revs, for the 
 nightlies, would certainly be helpful. Presumably there would need to be a 
 brief README file so that folks would know how and where to install them. I 
 can assist with that, if you desire. The default location would be 
 /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resource/tests (eg. R.home(tests)).
 
 My broad perspective is that these tests are in effect, an integral part of 
 validating an R installation, which is something that I do. While this has 
 special meaning for folks involved in clinical trials (eg. see 6.3 in 
 http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf), it seems logical that this would 
 have value to folks in other domains as well. It would make it easier for 
 useRs to fully utilize the functions in 'tools' that R Core has taken the 
 time and consideration to provide.
 
 Presumably, somewhere along the way around the time of 2.9.0, a decision was 
 made to enable the test files to be optionally installed when using the 
 Windows binary for ease of access, to enable that user base to be able to run 
 the more extensive tests available. It would seem logical from a consistency 
 perspective, to enable the OSX user base to have similar ease of access. I 
 can't speak to what the various Linux packagers of R do, since that may vary 
 across distributions due to differing packaging standards and it is possible 
 that some may not even be aware of the tests functionality.
 
 Thus, if and when convenient, it would seem ideal to make these a standard 
 part of the OSX binaries. The entire tests tree is only about 5 Mb, so it 
 does not materially add to local data storage requirements.
 
 Thanks again Simon and let me know what I can do to assist. Feel free to 
 contact me offlist.
 
 Regards,
 
 Marc
 
 
 
 I did not see anything relevant in the OSX FAQ for R and a search of the 
 manuals and the archives yielded no joy. Presumably, one can just copy the 
 files from the SVN repo above, being sure to 

Re: [R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-02 Thread Marc Schwartz
Simon,

Thanks so much for making this change!

I downloaded the latest nightly and ran all tests (testInstalledBasic(both) 
and then testInstalledPackages() for examples, tests and vignettes for both 
base and recommended) locally here, which all pass. This is great!

Will this change also show up in the next stable release on CRAN?

For those who may still be following this thread, be sure that you run these 
tests in an R session using 'R --vanilla' from the command line (OSX Terminal 
app in Applications/Utilities), rather than using R.app or other GUIs (eg. 
RStudio, etc.). You may have modifications in your .Rprofile or elsewhere that 
may conflict with these tests and the GUI's may similarly alter the default 
environment. In addition, you should run these tests before installing any CRAN 
or other third party packages, which may also result in some conflicts with 
these tests. 

Simon, thanks again for this change and the incredibly fast turn around!

Best regards,

Marc


On Feb 2, 2012, at 9:40 AM, Simon Urbanek wrote:

 The current builds now contains tests. As Brian noted size is probably not an 
 issue anymore so it was the easiest to simply run install-tests in the build.
 
 Cheers,
 Simon
 
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
 
 Hi Simon,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
 
 Marc,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
 
 Hi all,
 
 I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux and for 
 the past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I believe, there have 
 been functions available in the 'tools' package to run post-installation 
 tests of the base and recommended packages. These parallel the post-build 
 from source 'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They 
 run the help file examples, more extensive package specific tests as well 
 as vignette code when present.
 
 When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to install the 
 required files to run the more extensive package tests after the initial 
 build, rather then just the examples in the help files.
 
 On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the 
 pre-built binary, to install these additional test files.
 
 When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider that path, 
 I did not see an option to install these test files and I don't see any 
 CLI functionality to replicate the installation of the test files that 
 would be performed when building from source. A search of the R.framework 
 tree did not yield any indication that the files are present, which would 
 normally be in a 'tests' folder (eg. see 
 https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).
 
 So, are these files not installed or made available when using the OSX 
 binary or am I missing something?
 
 Yes, they are not available in the binary distribution. You can still use 
 make install-tests when compiling your own R, and since they are 
 arch-independent you can pick any architecture for that.
 
 It would be certainly possible to include the test files in the 
 distribution, but so far you are the first person asking about that, so it 
 doesn't seem prudent. However, it would be even easier to just add a 
 separate tar ball of tests to the http://R.reasearch.att.com site for 
 nightly builds if that would satisfy your needs.
 
 Cheers,
 Simon
 
 
 Thanks for your reply and confirmation. I can certainly continue, as I have 
 done, to build R from source. In my case, I build 32 bit R, as I don't have 
 a need for the additional memory address space provided by 64 bits, even 
 though I have 8Gb on my MBP. It takes about 20 minutes to build and another 
 40 to run the full suite of tests.
 
 I was just doing some forward looking, considering alternatives to building 
 from source and instead using the OSX binaries, both the stable release on 
 CRAN and the patched versions that you kindly provide at the URL you list 
 above. There are benefits to using the official binaries of course.
 
 Providing a tarball of the tests folder, matching svn revs, for the 
 nightlies, would certainly be helpful. Presumably there would need to be a 
 brief README file so that folks would know how and where to install them. I 
 can assist with that, if you desire. The default location would be 
 /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resource/tests (eg. R.home(tests)).
 
 My broad perspective is that these tests are in effect, an integral part of 
 validating an R installation, which is something that I do. While this has 
 special meaning for folks involved in clinical trials (eg. see 6.3 in 
 http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf), it seems logical that this would 
 have value to folks in other domains as well. It would make it easier for 
 useRs to fully utilize the functions in 'tools' that R Core has taken the 
 time and consideration to provide.
 
 Presumably, somewhere along the way around the time of 2.9.0, a decision was 
 made to 

Re: [R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-02 Thread Simon Urbanek

On Feb 2, 2012, at 1:10 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:

 Simon,
 
 Thanks so much for making this change!
 
 I downloaded the latest nightly and ran all tests (testInstalledBasic(both) 
 and then testInstalledPackages() for examples, tests and vignettes for both 
 base and recommended) locally here, which all pass. This is great!
 
 Will this change also show up in the next stable release on CRAN?
 

Yes, there is no difference in release builds and the nightly builds (which is 
sort of the point of the nightlies so you can test pre-releases).


 For those who may still be following this thread, be sure that you run these 
 tests in an R session using 'R --vanilla' from the command line (OSX Terminal 
 app in Applications/Utilities), rather than using R.app or other GUIs (eg. 
 RStudio, etc.). You may have modifications in your .Rprofile or elsewhere 
 that may conflict with these tests and the GUI's may similarly alter the 
 default environment. In addition, you should run these tests before 
 installing any CRAN or other third party packages, which may also result in 
 some conflicts with these tests. 
 
 Simon, thanks again for this change and the incredibly fast turn around!
 

Sure, you're welcome.

Cheers,
Simon


 Best regards,
 
 Marc
 
 
 On Feb 2, 2012, at 9:40 AM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
 
 The current builds now contains tests. As Brian noted size is probably not 
 an issue anymore so it was the easiest to simply run install-tests in the 
 build.
 
 Cheers,
 Simon
 
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
 
 Hi Simon,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
 
 Marc,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
 
 Hi all,
 
 I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux and for 
 the past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I believe, there have 
 been functions available in the 'tools' package to run post-installation 
 tests of the base and recommended packages. These parallel the post-build 
 from source 'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They 
 run the help file examples, more extensive package specific tests as well 
 as vignette code when present.
 
 When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to install 
 the required files to run the more extensive package tests after the 
 initial build, rather then just the examples in the help files.
 
 On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the 
 pre-built binary, to install these additional test files.
 
 When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider that path, 
 I did not see an option to install these test files and I don't see any 
 CLI functionality to replicate the installation of the test files that 
 would be performed when building from source. A search of the R.framework 
 tree did not yield any indication that the files are present, which would 
 normally be in a 'tests' folder (eg. see 
 https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).
 
 So, are these files not installed or made available when using the OSX 
 binary or am I missing something?
 
 Yes, they are not available in the binary distribution. You can still use 
 make install-tests when compiling your own R, and since they are 
 arch-independent you can pick any architecture for that.
 
 It would be certainly possible to include the test files in the 
 distribution, but so far you are the first person asking about that, so it 
 doesn't seem prudent. However, it would be even easier to just add a 
 separate tar ball of tests to the http://R.reasearch.att.com site for 
 nightly builds if that would satisfy your needs.
 
 Cheers,
 Simon
 
 
 Thanks for your reply and confirmation. I can certainly continue, as I have 
 done, to build R from source. In my case, I build 32 bit R, as I don't have 
 a need for the additional memory address space provided by 64 bits, even 
 though I have 8Gb on my MBP. It takes about 20 minutes to build and another 
 40 to run the full suite of tests.
 
 I was just doing some forward looking, considering alternatives to building 
 from source and instead using the OSX binaries, both the stable release on 
 CRAN and the patched versions that you kindly provide at the URL you list 
 above. There are benefits to using the official binaries of course.
 
 Providing a tarball of the tests folder, matching svn revs, for the 
 nightlies, would certainly be helpful. Presumably there would need to be a 
 brief README file so that folks would know how and where to install them. I 
 can assist with that, if you desire. The default location would be 
 /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resource/tests (eg. R.home(tests)).
 
 My broad perspective is that these tests are in effect, an integral part of 
 validating an R installation, which is something that I do. While this has 
 special meaning for folks involved in clinical trials (eg. see 6.3 in 
 http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf), it seems logical that this would 
 have value 

[R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-01 Thread Marc Schwartz
Hi all,

I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux and for the 
past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I believe, there have been 
functions available in the 'tools' package to run post-installation tests of 
the base and recommended packages. These parallel the post-build from source 
'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They run the help file 
examples, more extensive package specific tests as well as vignette code when 
present.

When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to install the 
required files to run the more extensive package tests after the initial build, 
rather then just the examples in the help files.

On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the pre-built 
binary, to install these additional test files.

When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider that path, I did 
not see an option to install these test files and I don't see any CLI 
functionality to replicate the installation of the test files that would be 
performed when building from source. A search of the R.framework tree did not 
yield any indication that the files are present, which would normally be in a 
'tests' folder (eg. see 
https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).

So, are these files not installed or made available when using the OSX binary 
or am I missing something? I did not see anything relevant in the OSX FAQ for R 
and a search of the manuals and the archives yielded no joy. Presumably, one 
can just copy the files from the SVN repo above, being sure to match rev 
numbers during the check-out.

Thanks for any insights.

Regards,

Marc Schwartz

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Re: [R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-01 Thread Simon Urbanek
Marc,

On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:

 Hi all,
 
 I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux and for the 
 past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I believe, there have been 
 functions available in the 'tools' package to run post-installation tests of 
 the base and recommended packages. These parallel the post-build from source 
 'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They run the help 
 file examples, more extensive package specific tests as well as vignette code 
 when present.
 
 When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to install the 
 required files to run the more extensive package tests after the initial 
 build, rather then just the examples in the help files.
 
 On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the pre-built 
 binary, to install these additional test files.
 
 When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider that path, I 
 did not see an option to install these test files and I don't see any CLI 
 functionality to replicate the installation of the test files that would be 
 performed when building from source. A search of the R.framework tree did not 
 yield any indication that the files are present, which would normally be in a 
 'tests' folder (eg. see 
 https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).
 
 So, are these files not installed or made available when using the OSX binary 
 or am I missing something?

Yes, they are not available in the binary distribution. You can still use make 
install-tests when compiling your own R, and since they are arch-independent 
you can pick any architecture for that.

It would be certainly possible to include the test files in the distribution, 
but so far you are the first person asking about that, so it doesn't seem 
prudent. However, it would be even easier to just add a separate tar ball of 
tests to the http://R.reasearch.att.com site for nightly builds if that would 
satisfy your needs.

Cheers,
Simon



 I did not see anything relevant in the OSX FAQ for R and a search of the 
 manuals and the archives yielded no joy. Presumably, one can just copy the 
 files from the SVN repo above, being sure to match rev numbers during the 
 check-out.
 
 Thanks for any insights.
 
 Regards,
 
 Marc Schwartz
 
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 R-SIG-Mac mailing list
 R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org
 https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
 
 

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R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org
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Re: [R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-01 Thread Marc Schwartz
Hi Simon,

On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:

 Marc,
 
 On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
 
 Hi all,
 
 I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux and for 
 the past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I believe, there have 
 been functions available in the 'tools' package to run post-installation 
 tests of the base and recommended packages. These parallel the post-build 
 from source 'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They 
 run the help file examples, more extensive package specific tests as well as 
 vignette code when present.
 
 When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to install the 
 required files to run the more extensive package tests after the initial 
 build, rather then just the examples in the help files.
 
 On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the pre-built 
 binary, to install these additional test files.
 
 When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider that path, I 
 did not see an option to install these test files and I don't see any CLI 
 functionality to replicate the installation of the test files that would be 
 performed when building from source. A search of the R.framework tree did 
 not yield any indication that the files are present, which would normally be 
 in a 'tests' folder (eg. see 
 https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).
 
 So, are these files not installed or made available when using the OSX 
 binary or am I missing something?
 
 Yes, they are not available in the binary distribution. You can still use 
 make install-tests when compiling your own R, and since they are 
 arch-independent you can pick any architecture for that.
 
 It would be certainly possible to include the test files in the distribution, 
 but so far you are the first person asking about that, so it doesn't seem 
 prudent. However, it would be even easier to just add a separate tar ball of 
 tests to the http://R.reasearch.att.com site for nightly builds if that would 
 satisfy your needs.
 
 Cheers,
 Simon


Thanks for your reply and confirmation. I can certainly continue, as I have 
done, to build R from source. In my case, I build 32 bit R, as I don't have a 
need for the additional memory address space provided by 64 bits, even though I 
have 8Gb on my MBP. It takes about 20 minutes to build and another 40 to run 
the full suite of tests.

I was just doing some forward looking, considering alternatives to building 
from source and instead using the OSX binaries, both the stable release on CRAN 
and the patched versions that you kindly provide at the URL you list above. 
There are benefits to using the official binaries of course.

Providing a tarball of the tests folder, matching svn revs, for the nightlies, 
would certainly be helpful. Presumably there would need to be a brief README 
file so that folks would know how and where to install them. I can assist with 
that, if you desire. The default location would be 
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resource/tests (eg. R.home(tests)).

My broad perspective is that these tests are in effect, an integral part of 
validating an R installation, which is something that I do. While this has 
special meaning for folks involved in clinical trials (eg. see 6.3 in 
http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf), it seems logical that this would have 
value to folks in other domains as well. It would make it easier for useRs to 
fully utilize the functions in 'tools' that R Core has taken the time and 
consideration to provide.

Presumably, somewhere along the way around the time of 2.9.0, a decision was 
made to enable the test files to be optionally installed when using the Windows 
binary for ease of access, to enable that user base to be able to run the more 
extensive tests available. It would seem logical from a consistency 
perspective, to enable the OSX user base to have similar ease of access. I 
can't speak to what the various Linux packagers of R do, since that may vary 
across distributions due to differing packaging standards and it is possible 
that some may not even be aware of the tests functionality.

Thus, if and when convenient, it would seem ideal to make these a standard part 
of the OSX binaries. The entire tests tree is only about 5 Mb, so it does not 
materially add to local data storage requirements.

Thanks again Simon and let me know what I can do to assist. Feel free to 
contact me offlist.

Regards,

Marc


 
 I did not see anything relevant in the OSX FAQ for R and a search of the 
 manuals and the archives yielded no joy. Presumably, one can just copy the 
 files from the SVN repo above, being sure to match rev numbers during the 
 check-out.
 
 Thanks for any insights.
 
 Regards,
 
 Marc Schwartz

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Re: [R-SIG-Mac] OSX Binary Installation and testInstalledPackages()

2012-02-01 Thread Prof Brian Ripley
Yes, it was added on Windows at user request (including the ability to 
install the tests directory from sources).  But as the Windows 
installers have much finer-grained granularity controlling what should 
be installed, people worried about space could skip it (and AFAIR it is 
not installed by default).


These days it is hard to imagine that anyone would be concerned about 
the size of an R installation, but it was not so long ago that people 
were squeezing R onto USB drives.  Nowadays the only reason not to 
simply install everything is that installing 64-bit executables on a 
32-bit OS which cannot run them might be confusing: and although in 
principle that might happen on OS X, I think you would have to work hard 
to try to run them.  (I think that Intel Core Duo Macs can only run 
i386, but they seem to be from 2006.)


On 01/02/2012 19:18, Marc Schwartz wrote:

Hi Simon,

On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:


Marc,

On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:


Hi all,

I have been building R from source for a number of years on Linux
and for the past 3 years, on OSX. Since circa version 2.9.0 I
believe, there have been functions available in the 'tools'
package to run post-installation tests of the base and
recommended packages. These parallel the post-build from source
'make check-all' functionality, but can be run within R. They run
the help file examples, more extensive package specific tests as
well as vignette code when present.

When building from source, one can run 'make install-tests' to
install the required files to run the more extensive package
tests after the initial build, rather then just the examples in
the help files.

On Windows, there is an option during the GUI installation of the
pre-built binary, to install these additional test files.

When installing the pre-built binary for OSX, just to consider
that path, I did not see an option to install these test files
and I don't see any CLI functionality to replicate the
installation of the test files that would be performed when
building from source. A search of the R.framework tree did not
yield any indication that the files are present, which would
normally be in a 'tests' folder (eg. see
https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-2-14-branch/tests/).

So, are these files not installed or made available when using
the OSX binary or am I missing something?


Yes, they are not available in the binary distribution. You can
still use make install-tests when compiling your own R, and since
they are arch-independent you can pick any architecture for that.

It would be certainly possible to include the test files in the
distribution, but so far you are the first person asking about
that, so it doesn't seem prudent. However, it would be even easier
to just add a separate tar ball of tests to the
http://R.reasearch.att.com site for nightly builds if that would
satisfy your needs.

Cheers, Simon



Thanks for your reply and confirmation. I can certainly continue, as
I have done, to build R from source. In my case, I build 32 bit R, as
I don't have a need for the additional memory address space provided
by 64 bits, even though I have 8Gb on my MBP. It takes about 20
minutes to build and another 40 to run the full suite of tests.

I was just doing some forward looking, considering alternatives to
building from source and instead using the OSX binaries, both the
stable release on CRAN and the patched versions that you kindly
provide at the URL you list above. There are benefits to using the
official binaries of course.

Providing a tarball of the tests folder, matching svn revs, for the
nightlies, would certainly be helpful. Presumably there would need to
be a brief README file so that folks would know how and where to
install them. I can assist with that, if you desire. The default
location would be /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resource/tests (eg.
R.home(tests)).

My broad perspective is that these tests are in effect, an integral
part of validating an R installation, which is something that I do.
While this has special meaning for folks involved in clinical trials
(eg. see 6.3 in http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf), it seems
logical that this would have value to folks in other domains as well.
It would make it easier for useRs to fully utilize the functions in
'tools' that R Core has taken the time and consideration to provide.

Presumably, somewhere along the way around the time of 2.9.0, a
decision was made to enable the test files to be optionally installed
when using the Windows binary for ease of access, to enable that user
base to be able to run the more extensive tests available. It would
seem logical from a consistency perspective, to enable the OSX user
base to have similar ease of access. I can't speak to what the
various Linux packagers of R do, since that may vary across
distributions due to differing packaging standards and it is possible
that some may not even be aware of the tests functionality.