Adding R programs to a personal library

1. create a library for a version of R in your home directory that makes packages available whenever you run R.
2. create isolated environments for each of your R projects with packrat.

Personal Global R Directory

1. first load the R environment module
   module load R/3.02
2. launch R
   R
3. then install the package, using generic package_name here
   install.packages("package_name", repos="http://cran.r-project.org")
4. Assuming that you do not have a personal library directory you will see
   Warning in install.packages("package_name", repos = "http://cran.r-project.org") :
   'lib = "/opt/R/3.0.2/lib64/R/library"' is not writable
   Would you like to use a personal library instead?  (y/n)
5. Select 'y'
6. Select 'y' again when prompted to create the directory
7. your package should download and install into your personal library directory

Packrat Project Directory

The R stacks on the HPC clusters, beginning with R-3.3.1, have packrat installed. Packrat allows one to create an isolated and portable environment for R projects. To get started with packrat.

1. create a directory where you want you want to store the project.
2. cd to the above directory
3. start R
4. at the R prompt, initialize the packrat project with
   packrat::init()
5. From this point on you are working in a packrat project. Installed packages will go into a library within this project.
6. To restart a packrat project simply start R from the directory created in step (1). The project will initialize automatically.