[R] build R source package in place from CVS?

[Duncan Murdoch]

Andrew Piskorski wrote:
> I'm currently using R CMD INSTALL to build and install some of my own
> custom R packages.  Basically, I use a script which first builds a
> tarball of my R source code, and then calls R CMD INSTALL, which
> builds and installs that source package from the tarball, including
> re-compiling all my C code from scratch every single time, which is
> both totally unneccessary and tediously slow.
> 
> What I would like to do instead (and what I do in fact do with S-Plus)
> is simply cd to the directoy where the production copy of my R package
> lives, do a CVS update, and then rebuild my R package right there in
> that directory.  I do not want to generate any intermediary tarballs
> nor copy the package files to any other locations.
> 
> Is there any current way to build R packages in place like that?  Or
> if not, how would you suggest I go about accomplishing this?

You can use

  make pkg-foo

to build and install a package whose source is in R_HOME/src/library/foo, or

  R CMD INSTALL foo

to build and install one which is in the foo directory.  No tarballs.

Duncan Murdoch