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How do I find out for which versions of R this package is available?

> install.packages("Rbbg", repos = "http://r.findata.org")
Warning: unable to access index for repository http://r.findata.org/src/contrib
Warning message:
package 'Rbbg' is not available (for R version 2.15.2)
user443854
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  • How are we supposed to know? Email the package and/or repository maintainer(s). – Joshua Ulrich Dec 10 '12 at 19:26
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    I immediately see at least 3 reasons for posting here: (1) there may be people who know [other than you], (2) there may be a workaround that does not require an answer, and (3) if answered, this can be helpful to others. – user443854 Dec 10 '12 at 19:33
  • Unfortunately, I agree with Joshua. This is not a programming question. I'm voting to close as off-topic – GSee Dec 10 '12 at 19:35
  • I think this would be a more generally interesting question if it applied to formerly-CRAN-available packages: RBbg is a bit of a special case http://findata.org/rbloomberg/ – Ben Bolker Dec 10 '12 at 19:59
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    Technically it may not be a programming question, but I'm sure glad it was here. So maybe there is some merit to it's existence. – MarkB42 Dec 19 '12 at 18:27
  • semantically it may not be a programming question, but I'd sure like to know the answer to it. – PatrickT Mar 06 '13 at 14:26

2 Answers2

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You can find out by browsing the bin directory at http://r.findata.org/

You're using Windows, right?

The source code for Rbbg is available on github at https://github.com/johnlaing/blpwrapper

GSee
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  • Yes, win64. Should I downgrade my R to 2.15.0? – user443854 Dec 10 '12 at 19:35
  • FWIW, I was able to install it in R-2.15.1with the command you gave. After upgrading to R-2.15.2 it's "not available". Might be worth sending an e-mail to the maintainer to get an up-to-date version on the repos. – GSee Dec 10 '12 at 19:44
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    that's actually a bit funny, because the R `available.packages()` function doesn't (as far as I'm aware) discriminate between minor (point) R releases, and there's not a built-in dependency on R > 2.15.1 ( http://r.findata.org/bin/windows64/contrib/2.15/PACKAGES ) , so there must be something slightly non-standard going on ... ? (Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules for Windows binary packages in some way) – Ben Bolker Dec 10 '12 at 20:01
  • @BenBolker that was my understanding too. I'm a bit puzzled. (but I don't use Windows when I don't have to) – GSee Dec 10 '12 at 20:28
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    I have this problem all the time on Windows, but because I have a mirror install on linux I install problematic packages on linux, they then become available on Windows, but it sure is an annoyance. – PatrickT Mar 06 '13 at 14:25
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Part of the issue here that is non-standard is it's looking for source by default, rather than binary.

Warning in install.packages :
  unable to access index for repository http://r.findata.org/src/contrib

http://r.findata.org/src/ does not exist, but http://r.findata.org/bin does

giminey
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