Version Version Information

Description

R.Version() provides detailed information about the version of R running.

R.version is a variable (a list) holding this information (and version is a copy of it for S compatibility).

Usage

R.Version()
R.version
R.version.string
version

Details

This gives details of the OS under which R was built, not the one under which it is currently running (for which see Sys.info).

Note that OS names might not be what you expect: for example macOS Mavericks 10.9.4 identifies itself as darwin13.3.0, Linux usually as linux-gnu and Solaris 10 as solaris2.10.

Value

R.Version returns a list with character-string components

platform	the platform for which R was built. A triplet of the form CPU-VENDOR-OS, as determined by the configure script. E.g, "i686-unknown-linux-gnu" or "i386-pc-mingw32".
arch	the architecture (CPU) R was built on/for.
os	the underlying operating system.
system	CPU and OS, separated by a comma.
status	the status of the version (e.g., "alpha")
major	the major version number
minor	the minor version number, including the patchlevel
year	the year the version was released
month	the month the version was released
day	the day the version was released
svn rev	the Subversion revision number, which should be either "unknown" or a single number. (A range of numbers or a number with M or S appended indicates inconsistencies in the sources used to build this version of R.)
language	always "R".
version.string	a character string concatenating some of the info above, useful for plotting, etc.

R.version and version are lists of class "simple.list" which has a print method.

Note

Do not use R.version$os to test the platform the code is running on: use .Platform$OS.type instead. Slightly different versions of the OS may report different values of R.version$os, as may different versions of R.

R.version.string is a copy of R.version$version.string for simplicity and backwards compatibility.

See Also

sessionInfo which provides additional information; getRversion typically used inside R code, .Platform, Sys.info.

Examples

require(graphics)

R.version$os # to check how lucky you are ...
plot(0) # any plot
mtext(R.version.string, side = 1, line = 4, adj = 1) # a useful bottom-right note

## a good way to detect macOS:
if(grepl("^darwin", R.version$os)) message("running on macOS")

## Short R version string, ("space free", useful in file/directory names;
##                          also fine for unreleased versions of R):
shortRversion <- function() {
   rvs <- R.version.string
   if(grepl("devel", (st <- R.version$status)))
       rvs <- sub(paste0(" ",st," "), "-devel_", rvs, fixed=TRUE)
   gsub("[()]", "", gsub(" ", "_", sub(" version ", "-", rvs)))
}
shortRversion()