R 3.4.2 (codename “Short Summer”) was released yesterday. You can get the latest binaries version from here. (or the .tar.gz source code from here).

As mentioned by David Smith, R 3.4.2 includes a performance improvement for names:

c() and unlist() are now more efficient in constructing the names(.) of their return value, thanks to a proposal by Suharto Anggono. (PR#17284)

The full list of bug fixes and new features is provided below.

Thank you Duncan Murdoch !

On a related note, following the announcement on R 3.4.2, Duncan Murdoch wrote yesterday:

I’ve just finished the Windows build of R 3.4.2. It will make it to CRAN and its mirrors over the next few hours. This is the last binary release that I will be producing. I’ve been building them for about 15 years, and it’s time to retire. Builds using different tools and scripts are available from https://mran.microsoft.com/download/. I’ll be putting my own scripts on CRAN soon in case anyone wants to duplicate them. Nightly builds of R-patched and R-devel will continue to run on autopilot for the time being, without maintenance. I will also be retiring from maintenance of the Rtools collection.

I am grateful to Duncan for contributing so much of his time and expertise throughout the years. And I am confident that other R users, using the binaries for the Windows OS, share this sentiment.

Upgrading to R 3.4.2 on Windows

If you are using Windows you can easily upgrade to the latest version of R using the installr package. Simply run the following code in Rgui:

install.packages("installr") # install setInternet2(TRUE) # only for R versions older than 3.3.0 installr::updateR() # updating R. # If you wish it to go faster, run: installr::updateR(T)

Running “updateR()” will detect if there is a new R version available, and if so it will download+install it (etc.). There is also a step by step tutorial (with screenshots) on how to upgrade R on Windows, using the installr package. If you only see the option to upgrade to an older version of R, then change your mirror or try again in a few hours (it usually take around 24 hours for all CRAN mirrors to get the latest version of R).

I try to keep the installr package updated and useful, so if you have any suggestions or remarks on the package – you are invited to open an issue in the github page.

Continue reading “R 3.4.2 is released (with several bug fixes and a few performance improvements)”