install R package from github using "conda"

Question

any one can suggest how to use conda in Linux to install R package from github?

Thanks!

Answer 1

According to this: https://github.com/conda/conda/issues/6674 You can create your own conda skeleton of a github derived R-package much as you would for a CRAN package.

Try doing

conda skeleton cran <github_url>

conda build --R=<my_r_version> r-<lower-case-package-name>

Then upload the built conda package to your own anaconda repository. This will fail if any of the dependencies of the package are absent from the anaconda repos that you have access to. So you might have to conda-build a few other packages along the way.

Alternatively, you could install it directly with devtools::install_github(github_url, dependencies = FALSE). If you do go down this route, please ensure that any conda-available dependencies for the github package are already installed.

If you don't use dependencies = FALSE R will install.packages a bunch of updates. (As far as I can tell) When you install.packages a pre-installed package some_package in a conda env (eg, to update it) and then check conda list <some_package> on your current env, it will show the version that was installed by conda, rather than the updated version.

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Edited build command, following @rpanai s suggestion