Search code examples
rrepositorypackageinstallationcran

How to install a package not located on CRAN repository?

I am trying to use Google Trends data and have come across a few packages that are not on CRAN (GTrends, RGoogleTrends).

I like what I have seen from the RGoogleTrends package at this blog, and wanted to give it a try. The RGoogleTrends package is located here: http://www.omegahat.org/RGoogleTrends/

First of all, I am using a Windows OS and there is an uption in my R console: 

>Packages>Install package(s) from local zip drives ...

This results in the following:

> utils:::menuInstallLocal()
Error in read.dcf(file.path(pkgname, "DESCRIPTION"), c("Package", "Type")) : 
  cannot open the connection
In addition: Warning messages:
1: In unzip(zipname, exdir = dest) : error 1 in extracting from zip file
2: In read.dcf(file.path(pkgname, "DESCRIPTION"), c("Package", "Type")) :
  cannot open compressed file 'RGoogleTrends_0.2-1.tar.gz/DESCRIPTION', probable reason 'No such file or directory'

I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that the file is as a .gz and not a .zip file.

So, I unzipped the .gz file outside of R and then zipped it into a .zip file (there's got to be a better way). Now I can install the .zip file, but when I try and load it with library, the following error occurs: 

> library(RGoogleTrends)
Error in library(RGoogleTrends) : 
  ‘RGoogleTrends’ is not a valid installed package

What am I doing wrong here?

Solution

  • You will need R version 3 for this, which you can get here for example: http://cran.cnr.berkeley.edu/bin/windows/base/R-3.0.1-win.exe

    Then open R and type:

    install.packages("devtools")
require(devtools)
install_url("http://www.omegahat.org/RGoogleTrends/RGoogleTrends_0.2-1.tar.gz")
require(RGoogleTrends)
ls("package:RGoogleTrends")

    You may get few warnings in the process. Ignore them. you should then be able to use the package.