updateR : update your R version in a breeze (on a Mac)
NEWS:
previously installed package retrieval feature is currently available only if launching udpater from base R rather than IDE like Rstudio. previously installed package retrieval feature is in beta mode and you may need to manually install back your packages after upgrading R version. Thanks God they are free :)
Installation
updateR is not currently on CRAN. To install it, you can use the devtools package:
install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("AndreaCirilloAC/updateR")
Usage
To update R, simply run updateR()
, You will be asked to enter the admin password in the process. The function will display the version that R has been updated to when it finishes.
Automation
updateR(auto = TRUE, .Rprofile = NULL)
automatically checks for update in each R session via ~/.Rprofile
. If you already have your own .Rprofile
, change .Rprofile
argument to /path/to/.Rprofile
. You could simply turn it off by setting auto
to FALSE.
Password
If the first character of your admin password is \
, make sure enter an extra \
before passing your admin password to updateR()
to escape UNICODE characters coding, such as "\123"
becomes "S"
so you need to key in "\\123"
for the actual "\123"
.
Compatibility
No compatibility check is currently performed between your OS and the installed version of R.
{updateR}
only checks compactibility for the latest update available on CRAN. Some of the patch/minor releases will be skipped, depending on the update of the website. For those who runs a macOS lower than 10.13, an compactability error will be returned if run updateR()
:
Error: Latest R Version 4.0.2 requires macOS at least 10.13 or higher,
but 10.12 is running. Consider upgrading macOS or install legacy R binaries from
http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/macosx/
Restoring packages
{updateR}
restores old libraries from previous version with the following actions, depending the type of releases:
- For major releases (R 3.x -> R 4.x), reinstall all the packages;
- For minor releases (R 3.5.x -> R 3.6.x), users may choose between reinstall or copy and paste all the file folders under /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/[old_version]/library to /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/[new_version]/library;
- For patch releases (R 4.0.1 -> R 4.0.2), no actions will be taken.
More information
To find out more on updateR, see the dedicated blog post: http://www.andreacirillo.com/2018/03/10/updater-package-update-r-version-with-a-function-on-mac-osx/