Adding local packages

[jgellar]

I saw somewhere that miniCRAN supports adding packages from local files, and from GitHub, but I don't see a way to do it and there are some outstanding Issues that don't seem to be resolved. Can you confirm - does miniCRAN support local packages, and/or GitHub packages?

[achubaty]

As far as I know, this is not in the package and is listed as an upcoming enhancement idea (#23). I have a custom function I've been using for my own purposes, which I will cleanup and contribute to the package.

[achubaty]

@jgellar #58 and #59 suggest that using file:/// to specify the repo for download may already work.

[achubaty]

nevermind, I read that wrong. those two issues are about installing FROM a local repo not adding a local package to one.

[jgellar]

Thanks @achubaty for looking into it. I'd love to see your custom function, if you could share.

In order to add a package, is it sufficient to just copy the source package (e.g., from my own library for an installed package) into the miniCRAN repo? I could manage the dependencies manually (just making sure that all dependencies for my local packages are also in the repo).

Or does that skip some internal step?

[jamieo-ms]

You can, in theory, add custom R packages to a local repository and AzureML should be able to pull from there. Two problems:

• download.packages doesn't do what you might expect with local repositories, so it currently doesn't work(mkRepo to local filepath throws unused argument error (repos = repos) #109).
• AzureML requires both "source" and "win.binary" versions of all packages right now(availPkgs is not a vector / documentation inaccuracy #108)

[achubaty]

@jgellar see the updated issue #23 where I've added a addLocalPackage function in a feature branch. Feedback appreciated.

[achubaty]

closing as duplicate of #23