使用install_github在分支上安装软件包时出错

Question

I've forked a package from github have made some changes. I'm trying to install the version of the package to which I've made changes with install_github(), but am getting an error message. Any suggestions?

The forked version: https://github.com/embruna/refnet

The edited version on the branch: https://github.com/embruna/refnet/tree/proposed-updates

I can install the forked version with:

install_github("embruna/refnet", subdir="pkg")

I tried to install the version on the branch with the following:

install_github("embruna/refnet@proposed-updates", subdir="pkg")

But then get this error:

** help
*** installing help indices
** building package indices
Error in scan(file = file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec = dec,  : 
    line 1 did not have 6 elements
ERROR: installing package indices failed
* removing ‘/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.3/Resources/library/refnet’
Error: Command failed (1)

Thanks for any suggestions.

EDIT: There were two problems: 1) the install_github syntax I used incorrect and 2) there was a folder in "pkg" that was throwing an error even after correcting the syntax. See below for details.

Answer 1

I'm guessing that specifying the branch with @ but the subdirectory with the subdir argument is confusing devtools .

This works for me (specifying both subdir and branch in the repo argument):

install_github("embruna/refnet/pkg@proposed-updates",

So does this (specifying both branch and subdir as separate arguments):

devtools::install_github("embruna/refnet",
           ref = "proposed-updates", subdir = "pkg")

The output starts this way ...

Using GitHub PAT from envvar GITHUB_PAT
Downloading GitHub repo embruna/refnet@proposed-updates
from URL https://api.github.com/repos/embruna/refnet/zipball/proposed-updates
Installing refnet

This is with devtools 1.12.0

Answer 2

I was able to install your proposed-updates branch with this:

install_github("embruna/refnet", branch = "proposed-updates", subdir = "pkg")

I get a bunch of warnings, but no error messages.