Installing R with Homebrew

Question

I'm trying to install R using Homebrew. I ran these commands which are recommended elsewhere on SO:

brew tap homebrew/science
brew install R

For brew tap homebrew/science, I'm receiving this error:

Error: Already tapped!

For the second command, I receive this:

Error: No available formula for r

Any suggestions?

seems that almost a year later, this is no longer a problem. The first 2 commands run with no errors. — Gary Drocella, Sep 09 '14 at 20:48

score 235 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 16 '18 at 15:13

235

As of 2017, it's just brew install r. See @Andrew's answer below.

As of 2014 (using an Yosemite), the method is the following:

brew tap homebrew/science
brew install Caskroom/cask/xquartz
brew install r

The gcc package (will be installed automatically as a required dependency) in the homebrew/science tap already contains the latest fortran compiler (gfortran), and most of all: the whole package is precompiled so it saves you a lot of compilation time.

This answer will also work for El Capitan and Mac OS Sierra.

In case you don't have XCode Command Line Tools (CLT), run from terminal:

xcode-select --install

edited Sep 16 '18 at 15:13

mb21

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answered Oct 20 '14 at 01:39

haddr

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I also needed to install xquarts $ brew install Caskroom/cask/xquartz – Donovan Thomson May 14 '15 at 10:41
Another intermediate step as of Jun 9, 2016: `brew link fontconfig` – Kedar Mhaswade Jun 09 '16 at 17:14
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You could also skip tapping (if you don't need anything else from homebrew/science) and run `brew install homebrew/science/r` – Alex L Feb 09 '17 at 07:32
See the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/46208239/3924118, as of 2017, brew 1.3.2, using a macOS Sierra. – nbro Feb 26 '18 at 11:00
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I got error: Error: homebrew/science was deprecated. This tap is now empty as all its formulae were migrated. – Menglong Li Jul 03 '18 at 13:24
simple `brew install r` worked for me on linuxbrew too (except permissions on Cellar I had to change to work with installing R packages later). – combinatorist Oct 05 '19 at 01:22

score 125 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '17 at 23:25

125

As of 2017 / Brew 1.3.2 @ macOS Sierra 10.12.6 all you have to do is:

$ brew install r

You don't even need to tap homebrew/science since r is now a part of core formulae for the Homebrew (homebrew-core).

It will also install all dependencies automatically:

==> Installing dependencies for r: gmp, mpfr, libmpc, isl, gcc

There are two additional options you might want to know:

--with-java
Build with java support
--with-openblas
Build with openblas support

answered Sep 13 '17 at 23:25

Andrew

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@Andrew Does brew install r with "--with-java" and "--with-openblas" options? – chang02_23 Oct 24 '18 at 17:26
@chang02_23 No, by default it is not. These options force `brew` to install `r` with dependencies (`java`, `openblast`). Default installation (`brew install r`) doesn't include those packages. – Andrew Oct 25 '18 at 22:08
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For people reading this now, I tried `brew install r` on macOs big sur and realized later that it was doing something else when it took too long to complete. What worked for me is: `brew install --cask r`. Ref. https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/r – Sindhu Shree Oct 22 '21 at 08:51

strivedi183 · Answer 3 · 2013-12-08T18:56:54.873

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I used this tutorial to install R on my mac, and it had me install xquartz and a fortran complier (gfortran) as well.

My suggestion would be to brew untap homebrew/science and then brew tap homebrew/science and try again, also, make sure you don't have any errors when you run brew doctor

Hope this helps

edited Dec 08 '13 at 18:56

answered Dec 08 '13 at 18:44

strivedi183

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GNU Fortran is provided as part of GCC now. – Liwen Sep 11 '14 at 12:56

score 23 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:04

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brew install cask
brew cask install xquartz
brew tap homebrew/science
brew install r

This way, everything is packager managed, so there's no need to manually download and install anything.

edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:04

nbro

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answered Dec 23 '14 at 11:43

Xander Dunn

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score 15 · Answer 5 · edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:02

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Working on El Capitan 10.11.1, the steps I followed are

brew install cask    
brew tap homebrew/science    
brew install r

edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:02

nbro

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answered Nov 17 '15 at 10:10

a.bose

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score 8 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:03

8

This is what actually worked for me on OSX Yosemite.

brew install cask
brew install Caskroom/cask/xquartz
brew install r

edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:03

nbro

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answered Jan 15 '15 at 19:36

Joseph Lust

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score 8 · Answer 7 · edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:07

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If you run

xcode-select --install

you do you not need to install gcc through brew, and you will not have to waste time compiling gcc. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/24967219/2668545 for more details.

After that, you can simply do

brew tap homebrew/science
brew install Caskroom/cask/xquartz
brew install r

edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:07

nbro

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answered Sep 01 '15 at 03:55

ThinkBonobo

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score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 28 '15 at 05:34

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I am working MacOS 10.10. I have updated gcc to version 4.9 to make it work.

brew update
brew install gcc
brew reinstall r

answered Feb 28 '15 at 05:34

Joshua

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score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:01

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brew install homebrew/science/r

works on OS X 10.11.6.

edited Feb 26 '18 at 11:01

nbro

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answered Feb 12 '17 at 01:19

ecoe

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score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 06 '17 at 07:21

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If you meant "r" specifically:
It was migrated from homebrew/science to homebrew/core.

For r 3.4.3 Mac High Sierra:

brew tap homebrew/core
brew install Caskroom/cask/xquartz
brew install r

answered Dec 06 '17 at 07:21

Amir

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score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 18 '18 at 20:14

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You can also install R from this page:

https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/

It works out of the box

answered Jun 18 '18 at 20:14

george

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score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 28 '19 at 01:58

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homebrew/science was deprecated So, you should use the following command.

brew tap brewsci/science

answered Jul 28 '19 at 01:58

JS.Park

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Nov 21 '21 at 17:08

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As per the homebrew page, it is installed with the following command:

brew install --cask r

answered Nov 21 '21 at 17:08

sharshi

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Installing R with Homebrew

13 Answers13

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