r - Install the package that has been removed from the CRAN repository easily

Question

I want to use some packages, but they has been deleted in CRAN, though their formerly available versions can be obtained from the archive. Those packages are not in r-forge, too.

For instance, dynamo and gafit.

Though those packages have been removed, I find them still useful and can help me.

Is it possible to and how to install them easily? like one_line_install('http://sss.tar.gz').

By the way, I may use them in Windows and/or in OS X. So the code should be designed as "multi-platform".

Answer 1

It is easy using the devtools package as there is no need to download the package yourself. For example:

library(devtools)
install_url('http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/dynamo/dynamo_0.1.3.tar.gz')
install_url('http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/gafit/gafit_0.4.tar.gz')

I have no doubt this will be platform-independent.

The package has other related and useful functions such as install_version, install_local, install_github, etc.