Elegant way to check for missing packages and install them

Question

I seem to be sharing a lot of code with coauthors these days  Many of them are novice intermediate R users and don t realize that they have to install packages they don t already have   Is there an elegant way to call installed packages    compare that to the ones I am loading and install if missing

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Use packrat so that the shared libraries are exactly the same and not changing other s environment  In terms of elegance and best practice I think you re fundamentally going about it the wrong way  The package packrat was designed for these issues  It is developed by RStudio by Hadley Wickham  Instead of them having to install dependencies and possibly mess up someone s environment system  packrat uses its own directory and installs all the dependencies for your programs in there and doesn t touch someone s environment   Packrat is a dependency management system for R  R package dependencies can be frustrating  Have you ever had to use trial-and-error to figure out what R packages you need to install to make someone else   s code work   and then been left with those packages globally installed forever  because now you   re not sure whether you need them  Have you ever updated a package to get code in one of your projects to work  only to find that the updated package makes code in another project stop working  We built packrat to solve these problems  Use packrat to make your R projects more   Isolated  Installing a new or updated package for one project won   t break your other projects  and vice versa  That   s because packrat gives each project its own private package library  Portable  Easily transport your projects from one computer to another  even across different platforms  Packrat makes it easy to install the packages your project depends on  Reproducible  Packrat records the exact package versions you depend on  and ensures those exact versions are the ones that get installed wherever you go    https   rstudio github io packrat

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if   require  ggplot2    install packages  ggplot2    library  ggplot2      ggplot2  is the package  It checks to see if the package is installed  if it is not it installs it  It then loads the package regardless of which branch it took

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This is the purpose of the rbundler package  to provide a way to control the packages that are installed for a specific project  Right now the package works with the devtools functionality to install packages to your project s directory  The functionality is similar to Ruby s bundler   If your project is a package  recommended  then all you have to do is load rbundler and bundle the packages  The bundle function will look at your package s DESCRIPTION file to determine which packages to bundle   library rbundler  bundle      repos  http   cran us r-project org     Now the packages will be installed in the  Rbundle directory   If your project isn t a package  then you can fake it by creating a DESCRIPTION file in your project s root directory with a Depends field that lists the packages that you want installed  with optional version information    Depends  ggplot2   gt   0 9 2   arm  glmnet   Here s the github repo for the project if you re interested in contributing  rbundler

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Using lapply family and anonymous function approach you may    Try to attach all listed packages  Install missing only  using    lazy evaluation   Attempt to attach again those were missing in step 1 and installed in step 2  Print each package final load status  TRUE   FALSE    req  lt - substitute require x  character only   TRUE   lbs  lt - c  plyr    psych    tm   sapply lbs  function x  eval req      install packages x   eval req     plyr psych    tm  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE

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Quite basic one     pkgs   c  pacman   data table   if length new pkgs  lt - setdiff pkgs  rownames installed packages       install packages new pkgs

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I use the following which will check if package is installed and if dependencies are updated  then loads the package   p lt -c  ggplot2   Rcpp   install package lt -function pack   if   pack  in  row names installed packages          update packages ask F    install packages pack dependencies T     require pack character only TRUE    for pack in p   install package pack    completeFun  lt - function data  desiredCols      completeVec  lt - complete cases data   desiredCols     return data completeVec

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I use following function to install package if require   lt package gt    exits with package not found error  It will query both - CRAN and Bioconductor repositories for missing package   Adapted from the original work by Joshua Wiley   http   r 789695 n4 nabble com Install-package-automatically-if-not-there-td2267532 html  install packages auto  lt - function x       x  lt - as character substitute x      if isTRUE x  in   packages all available TRUE           eval parse text   sprintf  require    s      x        else         update packages ask  FALSE   update installed packages      eval parse text   sprintf  install packages    s    dependencies   TRUE    x          if isTRUE x  in   packages all available TRUE           eval parse text   sprintf  require    s      x        else       source  http   bioconductor org biocLite R        biocLite character    ask FALSE   update installed packages      eval parse text   sprintf  biocLite    s      x        eval parse text   sprintf  require    s      x            Example   install packages auto qvalue    from bioconductor install packages auto rNMF    from CRAN   PS  update packages ask   FALSE   amp  biocLite character    ask FALSE  will update all installed packages on the system  This can take a long time and consider it as a full R upgrade which may not be warranted all the time

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Dason K  and I have the pacman package that can do this nicely   The function p load in the package does this   The first line is just to ensure that pacman is installed   if   require  pacman    install packages  pacman   pacman  p load package1  package2  package n

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The coming version of RStudio  1 2   already available as a preview  will include a feature to detect missing packages in library   and require   calls  and prompt the user to install them      Detect missing R packages        Many R scripts open with calls to library   and require   to load the packages they need in order to execute  If you open an R script that references packages that you don   t have installed  RStudio will now offer to install all the needed packages in a single click  No more typing install packages   repeatedly until the errors go away    https   blog rstudio com 2018 11 19 rstudio-1-2-preview-the-little-things    This seems to address the original concern of OP particularly well        Many of them are novice intermediate R users and don t realize that they have to install packages they don t already have

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Almost all the answers here rely on either  1  require   or  2  installed packages   to check if a given package is already installed or not  I m adding an answer because these are unsatisfactory for a lightweight approach to answering this question   require has the side effect of loading the package s namespace  which may not always be desirable installed packages is a bazooka to light a candle -- it will check the universe of installed packages first  then we check if our one  or few  package s  are  quot in stock quot  at this library  No need to build a haystack just to find a needle   This answer was also inspired by  ArtemKlevtsov s great answer in a similar spirit on a duplicated version of this question  He noted that system file package x  can have the desired affect of returning    if the package isn t installed  and something with nchar  gt  1 otherwise  If we look under the hood of how system file accomplishes this  we can see it uses a different base function  find package  which we could use directly    a package that exists find package  data table   quiet TRUE     1   quot  Library Frameworks R framework Versions 4 0 Resources library data table quot     a package that does not find package  InstantaneousWorldPeace   quiet TRUE    character 0   We can also look under the hood at find package to see how it works  but this is mainly an instructive exercise -- the only ways to slim down the function that I see would be to skip some robustness checks  But the basic idea is  look in  libPaths   -- any installed package pkg will have a DESCRIPTION file at file path  libPaths    pkg   so a quick-and-dirty check is file exists file path  libPaths    pkg   DESCRIPTION

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List of packages for session  packages   c  ggplot2    plyr    rms      Install CRAN packages  if not already installed   inst  lt -  packages  in  installed packages   if length  packages   inst    gt  0  install packages  packages   inst      Load packages into session  lapply  packages  require  character only TRUE

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Yes   If you have your list of packages  compare it to the output from installed packages     Package   and install the missing packages   Something like this   list of packages  lt - c  ggplot2    Rcpp   new packages  lt - list of packages   list of packages  in  installed packages     Package     if length new packages   install packages new packages    Otherwise   If you put your code in a package and make them dependencies  then they will automatically be installed when you install your package

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Here s my code for it   packages  lt - c  dplyr    gridBase    gridExtra   package loader  lt - function x       for  i in 1 length x            if   identical  x i   installed packages   x i  1                 install packages x i   dep   TRUE            else               require x i   character only   TRUE                    package loader packages

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You can simply use the setdiff function to get the packages that aren t installed and then install them  In the sample below  we check if the ggplot2 and Rcpp packages are installed before installing them   unavailable  lt - setdiff c  ggplot2    Rcpp    rownames installed packages     install packages unavailable    In one line  the above can be written as   install packages setdiff c  ggplot2    Rcpp    rownames installed packages

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You can just use the return value of require   if  require somepackage        install packages  somepackage       library somepackage      I use library after the install because it will throw an exception if the install wasn t successful or the package  can t be loaded for some other reason  You make this more robust and reuseable   dynamic require  lt - function package     if eval parse text paste  require   package         return True    install packages package    return eval parse text paste  require   package            The downside to this method is that you have to pass the package name in quotes  which you don t do for the real require

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packages installed  lt - function pkg list           pkgs  lt - unlist pkg list          req  lt - unlist lapply pkgs  require  character only   TRUE           not installed  lt - pkgs req    FALSE          lapply not installed  install packages                  repos    http   cran r-project org    add lib loc if needed         lapply pkgs  library  character only   TRUE

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Regarding your main objective   to install libraries they don t already have    and regardless of using   instllaed packages      The following function mask the original function of require  It tries to load and check the named package  x    if it s not installed  install it directly including dependencies  and lastly load it normaly  you rename the function name from  require  to  library  to maintain integrity   The only limitation is packages names should be quoted   require  lt - function x       if   base  require x  character only   TRUE       install packages x  dep   TRUE       base  require x  character only   TRUE           So you can load and installed package the old fashion way of R       require   ggplot2       require    Rcpp

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In my case  I wanted a one liner that I could run from the commandline  actually via a Makefile   Here is an example installing  VGAM  and  feather  if they are not already installed   R -e  for  p in c  VGAM    feather    if   require p  character only TRUE   install packages p  repos  http   cran us r-project org      From within R it would just be   for  p in c  VGAM    feather    if   require p  character only TRUE   install packages p  repos  http   cran us r-project org     There is nothing here beyond the previous solutions except that    I keep it to a single line I hard code the repos parameter  to avoid any popups asking about the mirror to use  I don t bother to define a function to be used elsewhere   Also note the important character only TRUE  without it  the require would try to load the package p

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library  lt - function x     x   toString substitute x   if  require x character only TRUE      install packages x    base  library x character only TRUE       This works with unquoted package names and is fairly elegant  cf  GeoObserver s answer

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48 lapply install and load  lt - function  package1        49    50        51       convert arguments to vector  52        53     packages  lt - c package1        54        55       check if loaded and installed  56        57     loaded         lt - packages  in    packages     58     names loaded   lt - packages  59        60     installed         lt - packages  in  rownames installed packages     61     names installed   lt - packages  62        63       start loop to determine if each package is installed  64        65     load it  lt - function  p  loaded  installed   66        67         if  loaded p    68            69             print paste p   loaded     70            71         else  72            73             print paste p   not loaded     74             if  installed p    75                76                 print paste p   installed     77                 do call  library   list p    78                79             else  80                81                 print paste p   not installed     82                 install packages p   83                 do call  library   list p    84                85            86        87        88     lapply packages  load it  loaded  installed   89

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A lot of the answers above  and on duplicates of this question  rely on installed packages which is bad form  From the documentation       This can be slow when thousands of packages are installed  so do not use this to find out if a named package is installed  use system file or find package  nor to find out if a package is usable  call require and check the return value  nor to find details of a small number of packages  use packageDescription   It needs to read several files per installed package  which will be slow on Windows and on some network-mounted file systems     So  a better approach is to attempt to load the package using require and and install if loading fails  require will return FALSE if it isn t found   I prefer this implementation   using lt -function            libs lt -unlist list           req lt -unlist lapply libs require character only TRUE       need lt -libs req  FALSE      if length need  gt 0            install packages need          lapply need require character only TRUE            which can be used like this    using  RCurl   ggplot2   jsonlite   magrittr     This way it loads all the packages  then goes back and installs all the missing packages  which if you want  is a handy place to insert a prompt to ask if the user wants to install packages   Instead of calling install packages separately for each package it passes the whole vector of uninstalled packages just once   Here s the same function but with a windows dialog that asks if the user wants to install the missing packages   using lt -function            libs lt -unlist list           req lt -unlist lapply libs require character only TRUE       need lt -libs req  FALSE      n lt -length need      if n gt 0           libsmsg lt -if n gt 2  paste paste need 1  n-1   collapse           sep     else need 1          print libsmsg          if n gt 1               libsmsg lt -paste libsmsg   and    need n  sep                       libsmsg lt -paste  The following packages could not be found    libsmsg   n r n rInstall missing packages   collapse             if winDialog type   c  yesno    libsmsg    YES                       install packages need              lapply need require character only TRUE

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source  https   bioconductor org biocLite R   if   require  ggsci    biocLite  ggsci

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I have implemented the function to install and load required R packages silently  Hope might help  Here is the code     Function to Install and Load R Packages Install And Load  lt - function Required Packages        Remaining Packages  lt - Required Packages   Required Packages  in  installed packages     Package           if length Remaining Packages                  install packages Remaining Packages             for package name in Required Packages                library package name character only TRUE quietly TRUE              Specify the list of required packages to be installed and load     Required Packages c  ggplot2    Rcpp       Call the Function Install And Load Required Packages

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Although the answer of Shane is really good  for one of my project I needed to remove the ouput messages  warnings and install packages automagically  I have finally managed to get this script   InstalledPackage  lt - function package         available  lt - suppressMessages suppressWarnings sapply package  require  quietly   TRUE  character only   TRUE  warn conflicts   FALSE        missing  lt - package  available      if  length missing   gt  0  return FALSE      return TRUE     CRANChoosen  lt - function         return getOption  repos    CRAN        CRAN       UsePackage  lt - function package  defaultCRANmirror    http   cran at r-project org          if  InstalledPackage package                 if  CRANChoosen                                 chooseCRANmirror               if  CRANChoosen                                  options repos   c CRAN   defaultCRANmirror                                    suppressMessages suppressWarnings install packages package            if  InstalledPackage package   return FALSE            return TRUE      Use   libraries  lt - c  ReadImages    ggplot2   for library in libraries          if  UsePackage library                 stop  Error    library

User · Answer

Sure     You need to compare  installed packages  with  desired packages   That s very close to what I do with CRANberries as I need to compare  stored known packages  with  currently known packages  to determine new and or updated packages   So do something like   AP  lt - available packages contrib url repos i  url         available t repos i    to get all known packages  simular call for currently installed packages and compare that to a given set of target packages

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Let me share a bit of madness   c  ggplot2   ggsci    hrbrthemes    gghighlight    dplyr     gt      What will you need to load for this script     function  x  ifelse t    x  in  installed packages          install packages x t        lapply x  require

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The following simple function works like a charm       usePackage lt -function p           load a package if installed  else load after installation          Args            p  package name in quotes        if   is element p  installed packages    1             print paste  Package   p  Not found  Installing Now               install packages p  dep   TRUE         print paste  Loading Package    p         require p  character only   TRUE             not mine  found this on the web some time back and had been using it since then  not sure of the original source

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Thought I d contribute the one I use   testin  lt - function package  if   package  in  installed packages        install packages package   testin  packagename

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This solution will take a character vector of package names and attempt to load them  or install them if loading fails  It relies on the return behaviour of require to do this because        require returns  invisibly  a logical indicating whether the required package is available   Therefore we can simply see if we were able to load the required package and if not  install it with dependencies  So given a character vector of packages you wish to load     foo  lt - function x     for  i in x           require returns TRUE invisibly if it was able to load package     if    require  i   character only   TRUE               If package was not able to be loaded then re-install       install packages  i   dependencies   TRUE            Load package after installing       require  i   character only   TRUE                   Then try install packages    foo  c  ggplot2     reshape2     data table

[r] Elegant way to check for missing packages and install them?

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