Capturing all console output, including messages from C programs, etc

gistfile1.txt

 
  conn <- textConnection("printed_output", "w", local = TRUE)
    sink(conn, type=c("output"))
    sink(conn, type=c("message"))
    install.packages("ggplot2")
    sink(NULL)
    printed_output    
    
    # This will append the text to the printed_output variable, so clear it beforehand.
    
    #If you get errors in install and your console output disappears, do
    # for(i in seq.along(sink.number()) sink(NULL)
         

[1] ""
[2] "The downloaded source packages are in"
[3] "\t‘/tmp/RtmpeTqYaE/downloaded_packages’"
[4] "Installing package into ‘/home/ironholds/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.2’"
[5] "(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)"
[6] "trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/ggplot2_1.0.1.tar.gz'"
[7] "Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 2351203 bytes (2.2 MB)"
[8] "=================================================="
[9] "downloaded 2.2 MB"
[10] ""
[11] ""
[12] "The downloaded source packages are in"
[13] "\t‘/tmp/RtmpeTqYaE/downloaded_packages’"

Well, this is weird