The Complete Guide to Updating Rlang + Troubleshooting Solutions

Try one of these methods to update rlang quickly and easily

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Are you trying to update your rlang package in RStudio or the R console? This package is known to be demanding to update, so if you’re struggling to update, you’re not alone! In this article, we’ll describe how to update rlang using the command as well as in the RStudio GUI, and we’ve included some tips for solving the most common problems when updating rlang.

1. Clean up your R environment with rm(list = ls ()).
2. Restart RStudio or R Console, making sure not to load any packages after the restart.
3. Run the command install.packages(“rlang”) to update rlang.

1. Clean up your R environment. You can do this in RStudio or the R console, whichever you prefer to work with. Run the following command to clean up your R environment:

   rm(list = ls())

2. Restart RStudio or the R console. The reason you want to clean up your R environment and restart RStudio or the R console is to ensure that no other packages that use rlang are loaded. This will cause problems when trying to update packages.

   • In RStudio you can alternatively press Ctrl+Shift+F10 to clear the global environment and restart the application.

3. Run the rlang installation command. When you restart RStudio or the R console, be sure to update your rlang package before doing anything else to avoid errors or the update not working. The command to update rlang is as follows:

   install.packages(“rlang”)

   • If you need to update rlang to a specific version, not just the latest, you can use this command, where [url] is the URL to the package on the CRAN website:

     install.packages(“[URL]”, repo=NULL, type= “source”)

   • You can also choose to update all your R packages (including rlang) with the following command:

     update.packages(checkBuilt = TRUE)

1. Open RStudio. If RStudio is currently open on your computer, close it and reopen it. You can press Ctrl+Shift+F10 to restart RStudio and clean up the global environment at the same time.

2. Click on Packages. It’s the tab at the top of the window, in between Plots and Please help. Do this before doing anything else in RStudio to avoid errors when updating rlang.

   • You can use this window to check your rlang version, if you are not sure which version you are using.

3. Select the check box next to rlang. This means you only want to update rlang. You can check multiple boxes here if you want to update multiple packages.

4. Click Update. It’s above your list of packages, with a green arrow. This will check for updates for the selected packages (rlang, in this case).[1]

   • Follow the steps presented in the GUI to update rlang.
   • You can also check for updates by clicking on Tools menu and selection Check for package updates….

1. The RStudio environment is not cleared when pressed Ctrl+⇧ Shift+F10. You probably have settings to save the workspace to .RData when RStudio closes. You can fix this as follows:

   • To go Tools > Global options… > In general. The “General” tab is the top tab in your RStudio preferences and should open by default.
   • Uncheck the box next to “Restore .RData to workspace at startup”.
   • In the drop-down menu next to “Save workspace to .RData on exit” select Never.
   • Click applythen Alright to save your settings. RStudio will now clear your global environment the next time you restart it.

2. The RStudio/R console gives an error when trying to update rlang. Many packages depend on rlang. If these packages are loaded in RStudio or the R console, you will not be able to update the package. If restarting the RStudio/R console with a clean environment doesn’t help, you may need to completely uninstall rlang and then reinstall a newer version.

   • Load the installr package by running the following command:

     library (installr)

   • Uninstall rlang with the following command:

     uninstall.packages(“rlang”)

   • Restart RStudio or the R console.
   • Install rlang with the following command:

     install.packages(“rlang”, dependencies = TRUE)

Categories: How to
Source: HIS Education