R: Copies all packages from one library folder to another

copy.packages.between.libraries {installr}

R Documentation

Copies all packages from one library folder to another

Description

Copies all packages from one folder to another. This function is used if we wish to either:

Upgrade R to a new version - and copy all of the packages from the old R installation to the new one.
Move to a global library system - and wanting to copy all of packages from the local library folder to the global one

It takes into account that we don't want to copy packages which have "high" importance (such as MASS, boot, graphics, utils, rpart, Matrix and more GREAT packages...) to the new library folder. Also, it assumes that within an R installation, the packages are located inside the "library" folder.

Usage

copy.packages.between.libraries(
  from,
  to,
  ask = FALSE,
  keep_old = TRUE,
  do_NOT_override_packages_in_new_R = TRUE
)

Arguments

`from`	a character vector for the location of the old library folder FROM which to copy files from.
`to`	a character vector for the location of the old library folder TO which to copy files to.
`ask`	should the user be given the option to choose between which two libraries to copy the packages? If FALSE (default), the folders are copied from the before-newest R installation to the newest R installation. This the overrides "from" and "to" parameters.
`keep_old`	should the packages be COPIED to the new library folder, thus KEEPing the old package as they are? Or should they be removed?
`do_NOT_override_packages_in_new_R`	default TRUE If FALSE, then If a package exists in both the "from" and "to" library folders - it would copy to "to" the version of the package from "from". (this parameter should rarely be FALSE)

Value

TRUE if it copied (moved) packages, and FALSE if it did not.

Examples

## Not run: 
copy.packages.between.libraries(ask = T) 
# it will ask you from what R version 
# to copy the packages into which R version.  
# Since (do_NOT_override_packages_in_new_R = T) the function will 
# make sure to NOT override your newer packages.

# copy.packages.between.libraries(ask = T, keep_old = F) 
# As before, but this time it will MOVE (instead of COPY) the packages.
#  e.g: erase them from their old location.

## End(Not run)