Figuring Out How to Install R on MacOS (from source).

[r614]

The R Readme has a write-up on installing R from Source for MacOS and an existing open-source implementation in bash.

However, there's a few problems:

• This requires XCode Command Line Tools and several compilers. Installation of these dependencies requires sudo access.
• This problem could be bypassed by assuming the user has these libraries installed.
• Another solution could be to host a server with several docker images, build the pkg using a cookiecutter image to ensure consistent folder/file paths and download it on the user's laptop for installation.

[r614]

Bash Script for start-to-finish R building on Intel PCs from R-Project
Assumes GNU Foltran and XCode are installed.

PATH=/usr/X11/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH
export PATH
LANG=C
export LANG
svn co https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk R-devel
# you may have to accept a certificate here
cd R-devel
tools/rsync-recommended
cd ..
# got the sources, on to building 64-bit R
mkdir rd64
cd rd64
../R-devel/configure SHELL='/bin/bash' \
r_arch=x86_64 \
CC="gcc -arch x86_64 -std=gnu99" \
CXX="g++ -arch x86_64" \
OBJC="gcc -arch x86_64" \
F77="gfortran -arch x86_64" \
FC="gfortran -arch x86_64" \
--with-system-zlib \
--with-blas='-framework vecLib' --with-lapack && \
make -j4 && \
make check && \
make install
cd ..
# if you want a 32-bit build as well, continue here
mkdir rd32
cd rd32
../R-devel/configure SHELL='/bin/bash' \
r_arch=i386 \
CC="gcc-4.0 -arch i386 -std=gnu99" \
CXX="g++-4.0 -arch i386" \
OBJC="gcc-4.0 -arch i386" \
F77="gfortran-4.0 -arch i386" \
FC="gfortran-4.0 -arch i386" \
--with-system-zlib \
--with-blas='-framework vecLib' --with-lapack && \
make -j4 && \
make check && \
make install
cd ..
# done - you should have 32-bit and 64-bit R
# set r_arch on the command line to start the corresponding R

Also found a FAQ that might be useful.