XP BATCH COMMAND RESOURCES

This file contains R-specific resources for Windows XP batch file
creation and also general resources for Windows XP batch file creation.

A. MAKING A WINDOWS PACKAGE IN R
--------------------------------

Make sure that:

- you have read:
   "Writing R Extensions" manual
   http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/

- you have downloaded and installed the tools from
  http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/tools.zip.

- you have installed LaTeX (MiKTeX), perl, the Microsoft help
  compiler, and (if the package contains C or Fortran source code) the
  MinGW compilers, as described at
    http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/.
  
- read
  http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/miktex.html

- your path contains the tools, htmlhelp, and the bin directories for R,
  LaTeX, Perl, and (if the package contains C or Fortran source code
  to be compiled with MinGW) MinGW.  The tools directory should be the
  first item in the path.  This link shows how to set your path:
  http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm

Assuming that the R installation is in \Program Files\R\R-x.y-z

1. Assuming your source package tree is in \Rpkgs\mypackage
   then at a Windows command prompt:

        cd \Rpkgs
        Rcmd INSTALL mypackage

   which will install it to \Program Files\R\R-x.y-z\library\mypackage
   Or if you want to install it to a separate library:

        cd \Rpkgs
        md library
        Rcmd INSTALL -l library mypackage

2. Now in R:

        library(mypackage)
        ... test it out ...

   or if you installed it to a separate library:

        library(mypackage, lib = "/Rpkgs/library")

3. Once it seems reasonably OK, see whether it passes Rcmd check:

        cd \Rpkgs
        Rcmd check mypackage

   and fix it up until it does.

4. Now create versions for Unix and Windows that you can distribute:

        cd \Rpkgs
        Rcmd build mypackage
        Rcmd build mypackage --binary

5. If you want to submit it to CRAN then upload the .tar.gz
   file that was created from the "Rcmd build mypackage"
   command in #4 to ftp://cran.R-project.org/incoming .
   I usually use FileZilla to do the upload.
   http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/


B. Some R Resources on making packages
--------------------------------------

John Fox provides a batch file for making packages:

	http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/04/11/6729.html

Henrik Bengtsson provides a batch file for setting environment
variables:

	http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/devel/04a/0594.html

Information on building packages can be found in the Writing
Extensions Manual.    The following link is also useful although
the enclosed batch files eliminate the need for some of the 
procedures discussed:

	http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/

Googling for

	creating making R packages

will find links to a number of privately written tutorials.
(I have not reviewed these.)

C. GENERAL RESOURCES ON WINDOWS BATCH FILE PROGRAMMMING
-------------------------------------------------------

The Windows command line commands will bring up help information 
that is particularly useful:

	help set
	help for
	help if

Here are some links on Windows batch file programmming.

	ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tscmd.zip - FAQ with many idioms

	http://gearbox.maem.umr.edu/batch/f_w_util/ - Frank Westlake utilities

	http://gearbox.maem.umr.edu/fwu/ - more Frank Westlake utilities

	http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.msdos.batch.nt/msg/5a9587e871c27a75 - cmd bugs

	http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.msdos.batch/msg/7b1d22945c89af75 - cmd help resources 

	http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/list/webdev.asp - Windows script downloads

	http://thesystemguard.com/TheGuardBook/CCS-Int/ - info on batch commands

	http://www.allenware.com/icsw/icswref.htm - info on batch commands

	http://www.commandline.co.uk - Ritchie Lawrence cmd line utilities

	http://www.cybermesa.com/~bstewart/ - Bill Stewart’s scripting tools

	http://www.fpschultze.de - FP Shcultze’s batch tricks

	http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/scripts - MS TechNet scripting

	http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools - R package building tools

	http://www.paulsadowski.com/WSH/cmdutils.htm - Paul Sadowski batch info

	http://www.ss64.com/nt/index.html - batch command reference

	http://www.vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/rundll32.htm - rundll for batch scripts