From r.turner at auckland.ac.nz  Tue Nov 24 22:40:53 2009
From: r.turner at auckland.ac.nz (Rolf Turner)
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:40:53 +1300
Subject: [Rd] The "lib" argument in install.packages().
Message-ID: <9D5D085D-E820-44A7-9FA8-66DCC7E9799B@auckland.ac.nz>


I was flummoxed for a long time by errors generated when I did
something like

	install.packages(foo,lib="Rlib")

where ``Rlib'' is my personalized directory of R packages, which
lives in my home directory (from which I started R before issuing
the foregoing install.packages() call.

Recently someone (I forget who, but thanks very much to whomever
it was) pointed out that I needed to specify the complete pathname,
i.e. "/Users/rturner/Rlib" rather than the relative pathname "Rlib"
or "./Rlib" (which I'd also tried).  When the complete pathname is
given the install.packages() call works seamlessly.

Remark:  I have "/Users/rturner/Rlib" as the first entry of  
my .libPaths(),
so just doing install.packages(foo) works --- but this gives a warning
about lib not being specified, which I find irksome.

Questions:

	(1) Why is it that the complete pathname of ``lib'' has to
	be specified?  Cannot the code of install.packages() be
	adjusted to work with relative pathnames?

	(2) If indeed this is not possible, wouldn't it be kind and
	helpful, to us young ( :-) ) and naive persons, to put an
	indication in the help file for install.packages that the
	complete pathname is required?

	cheers,

		Rolf Turner

P. S. > sessionInfo()
R version 2.10.0 (2009-10-26)
i386-apple-darwin8.11.1

locale:
[1] C

attached base packages:
[1] datasets  utils     stats     graphics  grDevices methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] misc_0.0-11    fortunes_1.3-6 MASS_7.3-3


######################################################################
Attention:\ This e-mail message is privileged and confid...{{dropped:9}}



[Rd] The "lib" argument in install.packages().
Rolf Turner