Install and Load Multiple R Packages

In enterprise environment, we generally need to automate the process of installing multiple R packages so that user does not have to install them separately before submitting your program.

The function below performs the following operations -

First it finds all the already installed R packages
Check packages which we want to install are already installed or not.
If package is already installed, it does not install it again.
If package is missing (not installed), it installs the package.
Loop through steps 2, 3 and 4 for multiple packages we want to install
Load all the packages (both already available and new ones).

Install_And_Load <- function(packages) {
k <- packages[!(packages %in% installed.packages()[,"Package"])];
if(length(k))
{install.packages(k, repos='https://cran.rstudio.com/');}

for(package_name in packages)
{library(package_name,character.only=TRUE, quietly = TRUE);}
}
Install_And_Load(c("fuzzyjoin", "quanteda", "stringdist", "stringr", "stringi"))

Explanation

1. installed.packages() returns details of all the already installed packages. installed.packages()[,"Package"] returns names of these packages.

To see version of the packages, submit the following command

installed.packages()[,c("Package","Version")]

2. You can use any of the following repositories (URL of a CRAN mirror). You can experiment with these 3 repositories if one of them is blocked in your company due to firewall restriction.

https://cloud.r-project.org
https://cran.rstudio.com
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/RWin

3. quietly = TRUE tells R not to print errors/warnings if package attaching (loading) fails.

How to check version of R while installation

In the program below, the package RDCOMClient refers repository - http://www.omegahat.net/R if R version is greater than or equal to 3.5. Else refers the repository http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/RWin

if (length("RDCOMClient"[!("RDCOMClient" %in% installed.packages()[,"Package"])])) {
if (as.numeric(R.Version()$minor)>= 5)
install.packages("RDCOMClient", repos = "http://www.omegahat.net/R")
else
install.packages("RDCOMClient", repos = "http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/RWin")
}
library("RDCOMClient")

About Author:
Deepanshu Bhalla

Deepanshu founded ListenData with a simple objective - Make analytics easy to understand and follow. He has over 10 years of experience in data science. During his tenure, he worked with global clients in various domains like Banking, Insurance, Private Equity, Telecom and HR.

While I love having friends who agree, I only learn from those who don't
Let's Get Connected Email LinkedIn

Post Comment 1 Response to "Install and Load Multiple R Packages"

AnonymousDecember 3, 2018 at 12:48 AM
Thanks for the post! I use an alternative strategy/function using the function "p_load" which can be found in the "pacman" package. See the code below.

---------- start code ----------
if (!require("pacman")) install.packages("pacman")
pacman::p_load(packages)
---------- end code ----------