[R] Installing different versions of R simultaneously on Linux

[Wacek Kusnierczyk]

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> This is really an R-devel question.
>
> On Fri, 27 Feb 2009, Rainer M Krug wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I want to install some versions of R simultaneously from source on a
>> computer (running Linux). Some programs have an option to specify a
>> suffix for the executable (eg R would become R-2.7.2 when the suffix
>> is specified as "-2.7.2"). I did not find this option for R - did I
>> overlook it?
>>
>> If it is not, how is it possible to have several versions of R on one
>> computer, or is the only way to compile them and then call R in the
>> directory of the version where it was compiled (~/R-2.7.2/bin/R)?
>>
>> If this is the case, would it be possible to add this o[ptiuon to
>> specify the suffix for the executables?
>
> 'R' is not an executable, but a shell script.

depending on what is meant by 'executable'.

"Files that contain instructions for an interpreter
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_%28computing%29> or virtual
machine <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine> may be considered
executables" [1]
"The term might also be, but generally isn't, applied to scripts
<http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?scripts> which are interpreted by a command
line interpreter
<http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?command+line+interpreter>." [2]

try also

    file `which R`

which is likely, system-dependently, to say that it's *executable*
(independently of the access mode).

vQ


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable
[2] http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?query=executable&action=Search


vQ