I came across a puzzling “File ‘/pkg/DESCRIPTION’ is out of date” error when updating an R-package of mine on R-Forge today. I was pretty sure the version number and date were correct. I couldn’t figure out any other issue, so I made a copy of my documents, checked out the code again, and copied the modified files back. All worked. I’m still a bit puzzled as I only use one machine for this, but who cares if the code is working…
R package not available on R-Forge?
Apparently it is still the case that some R packages on R-Forge are unavailable for download. For instance, the package Austin to calculate Wordscores and Wordfish has no download candidate for Windows. Does that mean Windows users cannot run Wordscores using R? Far from it, they just have to compile the package themselves. This might sound a bit scary, but is actually quite easy if you follow the instructions I have posted over a year ago.
Installing R 3.0.0 Packages from R-Forge
R packages need to be re-installed in the new version 3.0.0. R-Forge is in the process of uploading new versions, but in the meantime some packages fail to install (there is no compatible installation candidate). Obviously this post will be outdated in due time, but until then, it is quite easy to install R packages from the source:
(1) Navigate to the relevant page on R-Forge (you’ll probably land on the summary page, and have to click on R Packages on the top right)
(2) Download the source file (the .tar.gz next to the stylized penguin). Currently the files for Windows and Mac are unavailable.
(3) Open R, set the working directory to the downloaded file
(4) Use install.packages("abc_0.1.tar.gz", repos=NULL, type="source"); with repos=NULL indicating that a local file is used rather than CRAN, and abc_0.1.tar.gz the exact name of the file.
Didier Ruedin 