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Strategy for downloading packages

5 messages · Duncan Murdoch, Simon Urbanek, Brian Ripley

Original
Duncan Murdoch
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I have a client who wants to install R and a custom package on a machine 
with no internet connection, so he wants to put everything needed on a 
CDROM and install from there.

I've told him how to work out what is needed, but it seems that too much 
manual work is needed:  he needs to install the packages from .zip files 
(this is Windows) in the right order so dependencies are met, etc.

Is there an automated tool to do this?  That is:

  - start from an R installation that's working, and then follow the 
dependency tree from a specified list of packages to generate a list of 
packages to download
  - download all the .zip or .tar.gz files for those from CRAN (possibly 
listing the ones that don't exist there, because they are local custom ones)
  - produce a script that can be run to install all of them on a new R 
install.

Duncan Murdoch
Simon Urbanek
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On Nov 19, 2008, at 15:52 , Duncan Murdoch wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
Why would that be necessary? The order is plays no role, since all  
it's just unpacking, so you can as well burn the content of the  
installed library and you're set... Or am I missing something?

Cheers,
S

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Brian Ripley
    

    

      
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On Wed, 19 Nov 2008, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        
I don't think the install order matters for binary packages (on Windows or 
elsewhere).  install.packages() certainly does not optimize it.

            

      
      
      
    

        
The easiest way is to copy a repository to the CD-ROM, and point repos at 
that (as a file::// URL).  You can even add files and rebuild the PACKAGES 
file (using tools::write_PACKAGES).

But if the list of packages never changes, why not just install them in a 
separate library and burn that on the CD-ROM?

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Duncan Murdoch
    

    

      
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On 11/19/2008 4:07 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
Thanks, I didn't realize that the install order doesn't matter.  But in 
the longer term, he'll probably want to do this himself, so he'll still 
need to generate the list of dependencies and download them.  Or maybe 
just burning a copy of the installed library is what he should do --- 
I'd just be worried about versioning issues if he tries to update the 
install without starting from scratch.

Duncan Murdoch

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Duncan Murdoch
    

    

      
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On 11/19/2008 4:16 PM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
Thanks, as I mentioned to Simon I didn't know this.  That definitely 
makes things simpler.

            

      
      
      
    

        
In the long run, the first order dependencies won't likely change, but 
their dependencies might.  We didn't write those packages, we just use 
them.

Duncan Murdoch