Questions on package creation
Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
I have some questions about
1. nomenclature,
2. recommended file locations and
3. overall procedure related to creating packages.
To the extent that it matters, examples here relate to Windows XP
R 2.0.1 beta.
The questions are interspersed and prefaced with ***.
My understanding is that there are actually 6 forms of a package
that one should use in package development:
1. original package. This refers to the original source files,
documentation and other files that the author develops.
If source control, e.g. svn, is used then these are the files
that are under source control. They are kept in some arbitrary
location on one's disk. Let us say \usr\mypackage, for example.
*** Is there some standard name for this form of the package?
2. source archive. This is created from the original package
like this:
cd \Program Files\rw2001beta
bin\R CMD build /usr/mypackage
You won't need to cd to anything.
which creates, say
\Program Files\rw2001beta\mypackage_1.0-1.tar.gz
The source archive is distinct from the original archive since it
is specific to a version of R and excludes the files referenced
in \usr\mypackage\.Rbuildignore
and others, e.g., .cvs files.
*** Is \Program Files\rw2001beta the correct place to put this .tar.gz file?
It's arbitrary where to save it, I would not save it in the R directory, though.
3. source tree. This is created from the gzipped tar archive in #2
like this:
cd \Program Files\rw2001beta
gzip -d mypackage_1.0-1.tar.gz
cd src\library
tar xvf ..\..\mypackage_1.0-1.tar
and is checked like this:
cd \Program Files\rw2001beta
bin\R CMD check mypackage
4. binary archive. This is created from the source archive in #2
or the source tree in #3:
cd \Program Files\rw2001beta
bin\R CMD build mypackage --binary
or join this with step 5 using R CMD INSTALL --build mypackage
which creates \Program Files\rw2001beta\myhpackage_1.0-1.zip *** Is \Program Files\rw2001beta the correct place to put this?
... also arbitrary (as above) ...
5. installed package. This installed by:
cd \Program Files\rw2001beta
bin\R CMD install mypackage
which results in the source package being installed in:
\Program Files\rw2001beta\library\mypackage
This can alternately be done with the R GUI menu:
Packages | Install package(s) from local zip files
6. loaded package. In R using the command:
library(mypackage)
loads the package into R. This can alternately be done
using the R GUI menu:
Packages | Load package
One might initially skip #3 and #4 and just test the package out
in R after #6 and once one is satisfied that it is in good shape
repeat the sequence.
*** Is all the above the correct and recommended sequence?
As always: It depends. Nothing of the above is completely wrong.
*** Someone mentioned that --force is important. How does that
fit into all this? I still have not used it and am not sure
about it.
It is used to overwrite the INDEX file. Uwe Ligges
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