Installing R

R programming language

R is a powerful statistical programming language, an implementation of the S programming language, with semantics derived from Scheme (see R programming language for details).

R on OS X

Install the R dmg format from a local CRAN mirror, e.g. Auckland statistics mirror.

Installation details

On OS X, R installs in the path;

/Library/Frameworks/R.framework /Library/Receipts/ # (R-*.pkg receipts)

The binary to run R is located at /usr/bin/R, it is now a symbolic link pointing to;

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 47 Jul 27 16:45 /usr/bin/R -> /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/R symbolic link created by; ln -s /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/R /usr/bin/R

It looks like in previous versions this was a binary not a pointer to a version specific binary.

The directory structure is;

# ls -la /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/ drwxrwxr-x 8 root admin 272 Jul 27 16:44 . drwxrwxr-x 6 root admin 204 Aug 23 2005 .. -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 6148 Aug 23 2005 .DS_Store lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 24 Jul 27 16:44 Headers -> Versions/Current/Headers lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 31 Jul 27 16:44 PrivateHeaders -> Versions/Current/PrivateHeaders lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 18 Jul 27 16:44 R -> Versions/Current/R lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 26 Jul 27 16:44 Resources -> Versions/Current/Resources drwxrwxr-x 9 root admin 306 Jul 27 16:44 Versions

The symbolic link for R points (R -> Versions/Current/R) to the current release, version which is located at /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/Current.

The symbolic link Resources (R -> Versions/Current/R) points to the version release directory structure including the currently installed packages in the library subdirectory. You can identify all installed versions in the Versions subdirectory;

#ls -la /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/ drwxrwxr-x 9 root admin 306 Jul 27 16:44 . drwxrwxr-x 8 root admin 272 Jul 27 16:44 .. -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 6148 Oct 17 2005 .DS_Store lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 5 Aug 16 2005 2.1 -> 2.1.1 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 5 Aug 16 2005 2.1.0 -> 2.1.1 drwxrwxr-x 4 root admin 136 Dec 14 2005 2.1.1 drwxrwxr-x 4 root admin 136 Jul 27 16:44 2.2 drwxrwxr-x 6 root admin 204 Jul 27 16:44 2.3 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 3 Jul 27 16:44 Current -> 2.3

Running different versions of R

If you want to change the pointer to the version of R that you wish to run, all that is required is to change the Current pointer above, e.g.

sudo -s [enter password] cd /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions rm Current ln -s 2.2 Current

To point to the current release again;

cd /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions rm Current ln -s 2.3 Current

Note, sometimes there seems to be something peculiar happening where the binary is not visible, re-installation of R fixes this without effecting additional packages already loaded.

Tcl/Tk Issues

The X11 graphics display will not work until X11 is started, and the environmental variable Sys.putenv("DISPLAY"=":0") is set.

Creating a global R profile

The DISPLAY variable along with other customizations can be set using a global R profile. To do this create a file called Rprofile.site in R_HOME$/etc.

> Sys.getenv("R_HOME") R_HOME "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources"

The Rprofile.site file should be a text file containing a global .First function, e.g.

.First <- function() { Sys.putenv("DISPLAY"=":0") Sys.putenv("http_proxy"="http://proxy.hort.net.nz:8080") options(device="X11") }

Note, the Rprofile.site file does not seem to be copied to the latest current installation of R (2.3.x).