remotes::install_github should offer to install latest CRAN version if available & local version < CRAN version

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1

I came across this issue today:

> remotes::install_github("tidyverse/dplyr")
Using github PAT from envvar GITHUB_PAT
Downloading GitHub repo tidyverse/dplyr@master
These packages have more recent versions available.
It is recommended to update all of them.
Which would you like to update?

1: All                                          
2: CRAN packages only                           
3: None                                         
4: vctrs (67c49a1cd... -> d7d4fd378...) [GitHub]

Enter one or more numbers, or an empty line to skip updates:

I don't necessarily want the GH version of vctrs, but my local version of vctrs < CRAN version yet there is no option to install the newer CRAN version on the GH version.

Is this by design, an infelicity, or a bug? Worth reporting? Or am I missing something/some functionality?

2

Hey, Gavin!

What happens when you select option 2 (install from CRAN)? Does this not update vctrs from CRAN?

Andrie

3

Hi Andrie! It's been a while :slight_smile:

When I entered 2 it did not update vctrs and then the dplyr install failed because I didn't have the required version. The only way this would complete without error was to manually install vctrs with install.packages('vctrs') and then retry the call shown in my original post.

4

If you don't want to upgrade from the GitHub version of vctrs then you need to call install.packages("vctrs"), or devtools::install_cran("vctrs").

1 Like
5

@jimhester I get that; it just struck me as a missing feature to not offer to upgrade to the latest CRAN version (but as I don't use this stuff so often I'm not familiar with all the options available in remotes (devtools) nor have I tracked its development history and kept abreast of earlier issues where this feature might have been discussed).

Given that install_github already offers to upgrade CRAN versions if they're outdated (where there isn't a newer version on GH), it seems sub-optimal to not offer the option to upgrade to latest CRAN version or to the latest GH version.