[R] Installing mgarch package for Mac

[Marc Schwartz]

On Mar 10, 2010, at 1:38 AM, mjlee818 wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am a novice in R. I would like to use a package called "mgarch", but I
> have trouble installing it. It is not available on CRAN servers. I
> downloaded the tar.gz file online. (mgarch_0.00-1.tar.gz) I have tried to
> install it using the "Install Packages" module. I am not even sure if it is
> a binary or source package, or what it is, but neither seem to work when I
> use the module. Can someone help me on using the package?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mike


The tar.gz file for the package, which is available from:

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/mgarch/

contains C code that needs to be compiled. It is a source package, for which you will need to install the Apple XCode Tools package, which contains the requisite C compiler and related tools.

XCode Tools will be available on your OSX DVD or from:

  http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html

I would recommend that you communicate with the package authors and request that they submit their package to CRAN and/or perhaps switch their development to R-Forge (http://r-forge.r-project.org/), both of which would provide the means to auto-generate and test binary versions of their packages to facilitate their use on Windows and OSX. That would enable folks on these two platforms to install the package without needing development tools, which most will not have by default.

An alternative would be to consider other R packages on CRAN that may provide comparable functionality.

Lastly, OSX specific questions are best posted to the r-sig-mac list. More info here:

  https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac

albeit, in this particular case, the potential resolution here would be helpful to other OS users.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz