R CMD build - possible from within R?

Is it possible to build packages from within R instead of from the command line calling R? I looked at ?build help file 开发者_运维百科and also goggled but no luck. Maybe its not possible?

It has to be possible (but not necessarily easy). R CMD build used to be a Perl script, but it's been a pure R function for some time; I can't remember the exact version when the switch occurred.

I (again) urge you to search for answers via rseek.org (not Google) before asking here. The 6th hit for "R CMD build" is build.R from the svn repository. I bet you could take a look at that script and figure out how to build a package from R.

If that doesn't work, you can always issue a shell command from R: system("R CMD build myPackage.tar.gz").

It's actually possible by calling tools:::.build_packages('pkname'). You can also add arguments, i.e.: tools:::.build_packages(c('--md5', 'pkname')). But be aware that this will quit your R session after completion so I don't know how useful it is.

Yes, using build, check, etc from the "devtools" package.

library("devtools")
help (package="devtools")