Install binary zipped R package via command line

Question

I am trying to install zipped binary R packages via command line on a windows 7 machine with

R CMD INSTALL packagename

but it doesn't work. I read that CMD INSTALL can't be used to install binary packages. So how can I install binary packages via command line?

Answer 1

An alternative for newbies like me that is hassle free would be:

 install.packages(file.choose(), repos=NULL)

The file.choose() command will show a window allowing you to choose the .zip file or the tar.gz file where you downloaded it. This command is very useful when you don't have enough rights on a Windows machine and run R from a flash drive like myself.

It is also useful before running this command to RENAME the zip file you are going to install into the package name that you intend to use.

Answer 2

You can use the Rscript front end to run code as if it were in a running R session. Say the package you want to install is foo.zip in the current working directory. I'm probably abusing Rscript here, but it works for me:

Rscript -e "install.packages('foo.zip', repos = NULL)"

You need to supply the path to the binary package if it is not in the directory where there script is running. repos = NULL is the trick to get install.packages() to work from a local file. Read ?install.packages for more info on other arguments you might want to specify, especially lib. Note that you don't benefit from automatic dependency resolution when doing this - you need a repo for that and if you supply one, R will try to download packages.

You are right about R CMD INSTALL; the R Installation and Administration manual has the following in Section 6.3:

To install packages from source in a Unix-alike use

    R CMD INSTALL -l /path/to/library pkg1 pkg2 ...

Answer 3

An addition to @moldovean's answer: I used to save the zipped file(copy from temp to a R download folder for future reference). When I updated R from 2.15.1 to 3.0.1, I run these commands for easy installation:

setwd("C:/Downloads/R Packages");
packages<-dir();
install.packages(x, repos=NULL) #where x is the name of package

And R installed all packages automatically from zipped files. Now I can update all of them with one command only(google it)