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update MASS

3 messages · Brian Ripley, Ramón Casero Cañas

Original
Ramón Casero Cañas
# 
I'd like to update MASS from version 7.2-11 to version 7-2.19. I am
running R 2.0.1 on ubuntu, that installs MASS with the package r-cran-vr.

I have tried doing update.packages(), and I get a list of packages that
I could update, but none is called MASS.

I have tried the following too, right after launching emacs, but to no
avail.

<QUOTE>
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES'
Content type `text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1' length 65650 bytes
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 64Kb

Error in old.packages(lib.loc = lib.loc, contriburl = contriburl, method
= method,  :
	no installed.packages for (invalid?) lib.loc=MASS
</QUOTE>


I have the package installed in /usr/lib/R/library/MASS. I can do

<QUOTE>
[1] ".GlobalEnv"        "package:MASS"      "package:methods"
 [4] "package:stats"     "package:graphics"  "package:grDevices"
 [7] "package:utils"     "package:datasets"  "Autoloads"
[10] "package:base"
</QUOTE>


How could I update the package?

Thanks,
Brian Ripley
#
On Sat, 1 Oct 2005, Ram?n Casero Ca?as wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
First, MASS is part of VR, so it is VR you update.

Second, please do *READ THE HELP PAGE*.  The first argument of 
update.packages() is not a package name.

Third, check the CRAN information, here at

 	http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Descriptions/VR.html

and note

Depends:	R (>= 2.1.0), graphics, stats
                       ^^^^^

and no VR update is currently available for your version of R.

Your R is seriously only of date.  You might want to wait a week and then 
install 2.2.0.

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Ramón Casero Cañas
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
Thanks Prof Ripley, and Kjetil too, for your help. I am sure this was
obvious to anyone but me, but I found the wording in

http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/MASS4/Software.html#RUnix

a bit confusing. May I suggest that where it says ``To get the very
latest version, use update.packages() from an R session'', it could be
added: ``Note also that the current version of your R base system may
limit the update, i.e. if the R base system you are running is too old,
you will not be able to get the latest version of MASS. You can check
the dependencies of MASS from the <a
href="http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Descriptions/VR.html">Description
file of VR at CRAN</a>''.

And maybe right before ``As the VR bundle is now recommended'' it could
say ``MASS does not have its own package, but comes bundled with other
libraries in a package called VR. Thus if you want to use/update MASS
you need to install/update VR''.

            

      
      
      
    

        
Searching a bit more I have found that this problem has been brought up
in the ubuntu forums

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-49178.html

i.e. that the GNU R version is too old. As a temporal fix, it is
suggested to install the sarge .deb packages from
http://cran.r-project.org/ and then Linux/debian/stable, overlooking the
dependencies error with libc6.

I'll update to 2.2.0 in a week, but for the moment I did the former and
it seems to work with the code I was writting.

Cheers,