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/