Problem installing zoo package

[mlv2691]

Hi! I'm taking The Analytics Edge course (certified) on EdX. It's my first time using R and I ran into some trouble with the second assignment. I am currently using R 3.2.0 GUI 1.65 Mavericks build as this is the version we were asked to download.

I'm trying to install the zoo package and i've done the ff:

'''install.packages('zoo_1.8-8.tgz', repos = NULL, type="source")
Installing package into '/Users/mlv/Library/R/3.2/library'
(as 'lib' is unspecified)
During startup - Warning messages:
1: Setting LC_CTYPE failed, using "C"
2: Setting LC_TIME failed, using "C"
3: Setting LC_MESSAGES failed, using "C"
4: Setting LC_MONETARY failed, using "C"
Warning in strptime(xx, f <- "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%OS", tz = tz) :
unknown timezone 'zone/tz/2020a.1.0/zoneinfo/Asia/Manila'

• installing binary package 'zoo' ...
• DONE (zoo)'''

3. install.packages('zoo',repos='http://cran.us.r-project.org')

When I answered Y, the installer ran but I got the error "Can't install the software because it is not currently available from the Software Update Server"

Any help would be much appreciated

[andresrcs]

@mlv2691

• installing binary package 'zoo' ...
• DONE (zoo)'''

You have already installed zoo with your first attempt, Can you clarify what your problem is? Are you able to load the package library(zoo)?

[mara]

This isn't the question you're asking, but you're running a version of R that is quite old, and, based on the error message, it sounds like you're working with someone or some data that is using a newer version (i.e. >= 3.5.0), so you're getting that error on load. See this answer for details:

Error listing packages, Error in readRDS(pfile): cannot read workspace version 3 written by R 3.6.0

What version of R are you running? The default serialization format for R changed in May 2018, such that new default format (version 3) for workspaces saved can no longer be read by versions of R older than 3.5 (you can see relevant commits in the CRAN mirror below) R 3.5 was a major update that required new installations of all packages (see post below) All of which is to say that I would recommend updating your version of R.

[mlv2691]

Thank you @mara

[mlv2691]

Hi @andresrcs,
Unfortunately no, i'm unable to.

library(zoo)
Error in readRDS(pfile) :
cannot read workspace version 3 written by R 4.0.2; need R 3.5.0 or newer

What is strange that my classmates in the course were able to install Zoo with the same version of R.

[mara]

@mlv2691

Error in readRDS(pfile) :
cannot read workspace version 3 written by R 4.0.2; need R 3.5.0 or newer

This error is definitely related to your version of R. I understand you were asked to download a specific version, but I can't think of a reason that a more recent one would cause a problem for you.

[mlv2691]

Thanks Mara. I'm beginning to think that I should just update my version of R as well. A friend shared though that updating to R4.0 might be tricky since it's a major release. I might just go for 3.5. What do you think?

[andresrcs]

Jumping to everything above 3.5 is going to be equally tricky because that was an inflection point, so I would recommend going for the latest R version.

[mara]

Yeah, as @andresrcs said, 3.5 is (in some ways) more major than 4.0—that said, I think you should still go for it.

For example, in the tidyverse:

our general policy is to support the current version , the devel version , and four previous versions of R.

R version support

When that was written (2019), I believe that brought us to 3.2.3. Because 3.5 has been out for quite some time now, I think you'll run into more trouble not having an updated version than you will working with the one you have now.

[mlv2691]

@mlv2691

install.packages('zoo',repos='http://cran.us.r-project.org')

@mara i installed v4 and was able to install the package! thank you so much for your help. appreciate it a lot

[mlv2691]

@andresrcs thanks too!!!