Package updating in RStudio

[Peter_Griffin]

I am a little bit confused about how the package updating in RStudio actually works. When I click the green update button of the packages panel in RStudio, it seems RStudio automatically reinstall all the R packages I select. I would like to know whether the old packages are automatically deleted after newer versions are installed.

In addition, I am not sure whether the packages shown under the User Library tag are all user-installed ones or they also include dependent packages. If they also dependent packages, I don't understand why expose them to users.

[technocrat]

Hi!

The update process works by installing to a temporary lock directory and testing, and then renaming it to the package name, overwriting the existing package version.

Dependencies actually are user-installed, as a consequence of installing the packages that need them. The packages pane is a peek into the default user (not system) directory of R packages and it would be cumbersome to organize that directory to distinguish between the primary package and its dependencies, especially when many dependency packages often are also used apart from the primary package.

(How's the writing goin'?)