updateR : update your R version in a breeze (on a Mac)

NEWS:

previously installed package retrieval feature is currently available only if launching udpater from base R rather than IDE like Rstudio. previously installed package retrieval feature is in beta mode and you may need to manually install back your packages after upgrading R version. Thanks God they are free :)

Installation

updateR is not currently on CRAN. To install it, you can use the devtools package:

install.packages("devtools")

devtools::install_github("AndreaCirilloAC/updateR")

Usage

To update R, simply run updateR(), You will be asked to enter the admin password in the process. The function will display the version that R has been updated to when it finishes.

Automation

updateR(auto = TRUE, .Rprofile = NULL) automatically checks for update in each R session via ~/.Rprofile. If you already have your own .Rprofile, change .Rprofile argument to /path/to/.Rprofile. You could simply turn it off by setting auto to FALSE.

Password

If the first character of your admin password is \, make sure enter an extra \ before passing your admin password to updateR() to escape UNICODE characters coding, such as "\123"becomes "S" so you need to key in "\\123" for the actual "\123".

Compatibility

~~No compatibility check is currently performed between your OS and the installed version of R.~~ {updateR} only checks compactibility for the latest update available on CRAN. Some of the patch/minor releases will be skipped, depending on the update of the website. For those who runs a macOS lower than 10.13, an compactability error will be returned if run updateR():

Error: Latest R Version 4.0.2 requires macOS at least 10.13 or higher,
        but 10.12 is running. Consider upgrading macOS or install legacy R binaries from
        http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/macosx/

Restoring packages

{updateR} restores old libraries from previous version with the following actions, depending the type of releases:

1. For major releases (R 3.x -> R 4.x), reinstall all the packages;
2. For minor releases (R 3.5.x -> R 3.6.x), users may choose between reinstall or copy and paste all the file folders under /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/[old_version]/library to /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/[new_version]/library;
3. For patch releases (R 4.0.1 -> R 4.0.2), no actions will be taken.

More information

To find out more on updateR, see the dedicated blog post: http://www.andreacirillo.com/2018/03/10/updater-package-update-r-version-with-a-function-on-mac-osx/