New to R Studio and wondering to install new package like ggplot2 (or any other additional packages/libraries), any convenient ways? Thanks.
regards,
Lin
You can do what Heroka said, which is the quickest way, except that you have to know the exact name of the package you want to install.
The other way is to go to the bottom right quadrant and select the "packages" tab and click on "install packages" above the list. This will open a new window where you will select what package you want to install, where on your system and from where. Also, there's auto-completion, so you just have to enter the first letters and select which package you want.
The advantage to doing things in script (library(ggplot2)) is that loading a package can be saved at the top of the script and easily run every time you run a script. Clicking cannot be saved, and must be done manually every time.
Use install.packages(ggplot2) in the console of RStudio or another GUI and then load the package using library(ggplot2) afterwards. If you don't get any errors you're good to go
Related
How do I get VSCode to refresh the plot when making a new plot without needing to close the previous plot tab?
Ideally, it should open up a new tab with the new plot next to the old one.
Moreover, when using Httpgd, even tho the plot refreshes without me having to close the previous plot, it opens up in a separate window outside VSCode. How do I get it to open up as a new tab like in the gif above?
I had the exact same problem and what fixed it for me was simply, in vscode, going into:
Files > Preferences > Settings > section Extensions > scroll down and find R:
find the section "Plot: Use Httpgd" and check it, and restart Vscode.
I can't confirm but I believe it might have started after installing the httpgd package, because I had the behavior you desire before installation, and the exact same behavior you experience after httpgd installation. Of course if my solution works for you (I hope), it will work under httpgd after and not the base default VsCode/R-plot viewer as in your gif.
#coip pointed out that the steps given on this stackoverflow post to me. Downloading the httpgd package from CRAN fixed the problem for me.
So I use a lot of custom built functions in R which I save in the documents folder in my pc. I would like to bring these functions into my R environment (I usually use source()). At the moment I use the entire file path, i.e. C:\Users\usename\documents\R functions\my_function.r and then create a quick access shortcut link in my project directory to these functions (for easy reference in case its needed). However I was wondering if there is a better way to reference these files. By better I basically mean shorter, or a way to source the files through the quick access shortcut. An alternative to this would be to create a secondary directory so I could just type source("&/my_function.r") (the "&" means secondary directory). This is just a minor inconvenience I think would make life easier if resolved. What do yo think? is this unnecessary complication? Is there anyone in a similar situation as me that has any tips for easily sourcing functions?
Thanks a lot!
If these are functions you often use, you could wrap them in a minimalistic package. Then your call would just be library("myhelpers") and you have all of them available.
Creating this package is quite easy. Assuming you use RStudio, you just:
Create a package: File -> New Project -> New Directory -> R Package
Give it the name you want e.g. "myhelpers"
Specify the folder it should be in
Then RStudio directly creates the package structure for you.
Now you have the package structure in your folder. It will look like this:
- DESCRIPTION
- man
- NAMESPACE
- R
- myhelpers.Rproj
You just have to put your .R files with the functions in the R folder. It does not matter, if the functions are in one file or in multiple files.
Then in R Studio go to the Tab "Build" and click "Install and and Restart". That's it!
Now in your other projects or R files you can just type and use all the functions you put in the R folder:
library("myhelpers")
var <- myfunction1(x)
If you later on want to edit your package functions or add new ones, you can just go to the package folder and click on myhelpers.Rproj and RStudio will open your package project for you. After your changes just click again Build -> Install and and Restart to update the package.
Here is also a short explanation with pictures. This is all you need to use your functions for yourself. The nice thing is, from there you can also go further if needed. E.g. add documentation to your functions. (then you could also have a help() page to your function).
R noobie here.
I'm am trying to use a package that I download off of github using source_gist, but it appears that I need to re-download it every time I quit R (I'm using RStudio).
To clarify, the function that I'm using is part of plotrix package and is called barp. Someone made a modified version of it (called barp2) and put it up on github. That's what I want to use.
So my question is this: is there anyway to have this modified code saved inside the plotrix package, so I wouldn't have to download it every time?
I hope I'm explaining this correctly.
So, let's get some quick terminology straight: the function you're getting off of github isn't a package, it's just a single function. If it was a package, you could use devtools::install_github once and then load it with require() or library() like any other package.
A good solution isn't too different. Just go to the gist, copy the code, paste it into your R editor, and save it somewhere as a .R script file. Something like C:/path/to/barp2.R (adjusting, of course, based on where you actually want to keep it and based on your OS). Then you can read it locally using source("C:/path/to/barp2.R") instead of devtools::source_gist().
If you always want to load it, you could load plotrix and then source this file every time R starts with a couple lines in your R profile, see ?Startup as #BondedDust suggests for details on this.
Reading it off of github every time does have the advantage that, if the author fixes bugs or otherwise improves it, you'll always be using the up-to-date version. It has several disadvantages too: requiring an internet connection, losing access if the gist is deleted, or being unable to access old versions if the author changes it in a way you don't like. Keeping a copy of a version you like is a smart move.
In package ISLR, there is a data set called Default.
I want to use that data set, but the ISLR package is not installed on my machine.
data(Default)
# Warning message:
# In data(Default) : data set ‘Default’ not found
library(ISLR)
# Error in library(ISLR) : there is no package called ‘ISLR’
Since I'll probably never use it again, I don't want to install the package. I thought about reading it from the web, but it's not in the linked web page from the package description.
In general, is there a way to load a data set from a package without installing the package?
You can do this from within R:
download.file("http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/ISLR_1.0.tar.gz",
dest="ISLR.tar.gz")
untar("ISLR.tar.gz",files="ISLR/data/Default.rda")
L <- load("ISLR/data/Default.rda")
summary(Default)
If you want to keep a copy of the data file:
file.copy("ISLR/data/Default.rda",".")
Clean up:
unlink(c("ISLR.tar.gz","ISLR"),recursive=TRUE)
I'm not sure you can get around having to download the tarball -- in principle you might be able to run untar() directly on a network connection, but I don't think the underlying machinery can actually extract a file without downloading the whole tarball to somewhere on your machine first.
You said, "Since I'll probably never use it again, I don't want to install the package." If the fact that you'll never use it again is your main concern, then perhaps this solution is not quite what you want, but it is probably the simplest solution:
Install the package with install.packages().
Extract and save the dataset that you want.
Uninstall the package with remove.packages().
So the final result is what you want in three simple steps, though the process does involve installing the package, which you hoped to avoid. But you end up without the package in your system that you don't want, so the end result is the same as what you want.
I have installed a library that contains lot of functions. I want to see calculations done in those functions. How to reach man page of these function in R prompt ?
I only know library(help="name of library") command to seek help.
The shortcut is:
?command
The longer version, for commands such as if for which the shortcut won't work, is:
help("command")
If you need to find a command in installed packages:
help.search("command")
If you need to find a command in all possible packages, the sos library is the ticket.
If you were using the ggplot2 package, go to google, type in something like :
'r ggplot2'
In the results look for the sites that look like this:
cran.r-project.org/package=ggplot2
and start with 'cran.r-project.org/....'
Click on that link and you will see a page for the package. You want to click on either the Reference Manual or for some packages there are Vignettes with more involved explanations and examples. However, the Reference Manual is usually pretty good for examples of how to use the package functions.