contrib.url in non-interactive mode

Hi,

is it intended that one cannot install packages in non-interactive mode,
without explicitly setting a CRAN mirror (see below)?
Couldn't a default mirror be used in that case?
Thank you.

You seem to be talking about installing from CRAN.  The intention is 
indeed that in non-interactive use you have to select the repositories 
you want to use.  See ?setRepositories and its links.

It is up to you to set a default mirror: we have little idea where you 
live (and it may not be where your email address suggests).  Geolocation 
of mirrors had been mooted but not implemented (and in a corporate 
setting is not 100% reliable).  The whole point of mirrors is to spread 
the load: without them there would be no CRAN as the main host would not 
allow the traffic.

This would have been appropriate for R-help, if it would not have been 
answered by doing the homework required by the posting guide (which also 
requires no HTML ...).

Bests,
Renaud

$ Rscript --vanilla -e "install.packages('whatever')"
Installing package into '/home/renaud/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.0'
(as 'lib' is unspecified)
Error in contrib.url(repos, type) :
   trying to use CRAN without setting a mirror
Calls: install.packages -> grep -> contrib.url
Execution halted

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Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
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Renaud,

The script below has been in use for about as long as littler existed, and
also ships with it. I use it, and its sibbling 'update.r' all the time. Doing
this at the command-line frees the R prompt during compilations too...

As Barry suggests, the RStudio-provided CDN is not a bad choice either as a
repo. 

Dirk

edd at max:~$ cat bin/install.r 
#!/usr/bin/env r
#
# a simple example to install one or more packages

if (is.null(argv) | length(argv)<1) {

  cat("Usage: installr.r pkg1 [pkg2 pkg3 ...]\n")
  q()

}

## adjust as necessary, see help('download.packages')
#repos <- "http://cran.us.r-project.org"
repos <- "http://cran.r-project.org"

## this makes sense on Debian where no packages touch /usr/local
lib.loc <- "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library"

install.packages(argv, lib.loc, repos)
edd at max:~$

Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com