Question

I’m trying to install development version of ggbiplotfrom Github. During installation I’m getting the following error message:

library(devtools)
install_github("ggbiplot", "vqv")


Installing github repo(s) ggbiplot/master from vqv
Installing ggbiplot.zip from https://github.com/vqv/ggbiplot/zipball
Installing ggbiplot
* checking for file 'C:\Users\Muhammad Yaseen\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpsx4n5u\vqv-ggbiplot-2623d7c/DESCRIPTION' ... OK
* preparing 'ggbiplot':
* checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
* checking for LF line-endings in source and make files
* checking for empty or unneeded directories
* looking to see if a 'data/datalist' file should be added
* building 'ggbiplot_0.5.tar.gz'
cygwin warning:
  MS-DOS style path detected: C:/Users/MUHAMM~1/AppData/Local/Temp/Rtmpsx4n5u/ggbiplot_0.5.tar.gz
  Preferred POSIX equivalent is: /cygdrive/c/Users/MUHAMM~1/AppData/Local/Temp/Rtmpsx4n5u/ggbiplot_0.5.tar.gz
  CYGWIN environment variable option "nodosfilewarning" turns off this warning.
  Consult the user's guide for more details about POSIX paths:
    http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#using-pathnames

Warning: invalid package 'Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14'
Error: ERROR: cannot cd to directory 'C:/Users/Muhammad'
Error: Command failed (1)
In addition: Warning message:
running command '"C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-214~1.2/bin/i386/R" CMD INSTALL C:\Users\MUHAMM~1\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpsx4n5u/ggbiplot_0.5.tar.gz --library=C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14' had status 1 

Any idea to figure out this problem. Thanks in advance for your help and time.

Edit

After downloading from Github, also tried

install.packages("vqv-ggbiplot-2623d7c.tar.gz", repos=NULL, type="source")

which produced this error message

Installing package(s) into ‘C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
Error in untar2(tarfile, files, list, exdir) : unsupported entry type 'g'
Warning messages:
1: running command 'C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-214~1.2/bin/i386/R CMD INSTALL -l "C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14"   "vqv-ggbiplot-2623d7c.tar.gz"' had status 1 
2: In install.packages("vqv-ggbiplot-2623d7c.tar.gz", repos = NULL,  :
  installation of package ‘vqv-ggbiplot-2623d7c.tar.gz’ had non-zero exit status

Answer 1

It’s because your Rlib path has a space in it: C:/Users/Muhammad Yasseen/R/win-library/2.14.

See how in the first error log the warning message was

running command '"C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-214~1.2/bin/i386/R" CMD INSTALL 
C:\Users\MUHAMM~1\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpsx4n5u/ggbiplot_0.5.tar.gz
--library=C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14' 
had status 1 

In particular, the --library=C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14.

This should be --library="C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14" to deal with the space.

Using install.packages takes care of the quotes for you – see how your second warning message (when you used install.packages) was

running command 'C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-214~1.2/bin/i386/R CMD INSTALL 
-l "C:/Users/Muhammad Yaseen/R/win-library/2.14"   
"vqv-ggbiplot-2623d7c.tar.gz"' had status 1 

The -l "C:/Users/Muhammad Yasseen/R/win-library/2.14" has quote marks around it, so you don’t get the same error.

I had a quick look at the install-github sources, and it constructs the R CMD INSTALL command via:

paste("CMD INSTALL ", built_path, " --library=", .libPaths()[1], sep="")

See how it doesn’t surround .libPaths()[1] by double quotes in case of spaces? I’d guess that’s your problem.

As to a fix – there seems to be an error using install.packages() on a tar file generated by git (as reported here). So, you can either:

• change your R library location to somewhere without spaces
• unzip the .tar.gz file (I don’t know what software does this on Windows) and install from the extracted directories rather than the .tar.gz.