Problem: Downloading Swirl Not Working

[techlessgug]

Hello! I am using a Mac and running 3.3.3. R for a class. When I attempt to download swirl this message pops up:

Warning in install.packages :
dependency ‘RCurl’ is not available
also installing the dependencies ‘desc’, ‘pkgbuild’, ‘pkgload’, ‘openssl’, ‘testthat’, ‘httr’

There are binary versions available but the source versions are later:
binary source needs_compilation
desc 1.1.1 1.2.0 FALSE
openssl 0.9.9 1.4.2 TRUE
testthat 2.0.0 2.3.2 TRUE
httr 1.3.1 1.4.2 FALSE
swirl 2.4.3 2.4.5 FALSE

Do you want to install from sources the packages which need compilation?

When I input yes this appears:

Package which is only available in source form, and may need compilation of
C/C++/Fortran: ‘pkgload’
Do you want to attempt to install these from sources?

If I input yes to this question I then am unable to download Swirl. I cannot update R or Rstudio because my Mac can't download any version past 3.3.3. Is there any work around I could use for this class? Thank you in advance!

[elmstedt]

Answer no. Always answer no.

When you install from source it requires other things on your computer to be working as well, which is another unnecessary wrinkle in the process. On Windows it'll be R Tools, though I generally see these issues with my OSX students who need XCode.

As you go through this you may need to install each dependency one at a time and keep trying to install the swirl package until you finally get it. It's tedious, but you should get there.

Just say no.