rpkgchecker

Provides tools to check R package dependencies, minimum R versions and comparison with internal copy of package install files.

rpkgchecker can be used to generate a list of direct download links for packages and dependent packages, for example:

If need to acquire a new package, this tool will check for any dependent packages required.
If wish to upgrade to a specific version of a package, this will check if available in the CRAN repository to be used for your release of R.
If wish to acquire a new copy of all packages on a server currently and any check for any new dependencies.

Which CRAN repository of packages is searched

The process makes use of the base R available.packages function.

The contriburl argument of available.packages is one way to specify the URL for a particular CRAN repository.

In turn, the rpkgchecker functions available_packages_tb and available_packages_long allow for a specific CRAN repository to be specified with the cran_repo_url argument.

By default cran_repo_url is set to search compiled Windows Binary repositories based on the R release being used while running the function. This can normally be achieved simply by using available.packages argument type="win.binary".

For example, if using R 3.6.3, then by default the URL searched using rpkgchecker functions available_packages_tb and available_packages_long will be https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/3.6

If wish to search a specific R package collection, for example for a different R release to that being used when running the function, or for non-Windows binaries, specify this in the cran_repo_url argument as shown below.

  # Search repository of R release 4.2 compiled Windows binaries
  # Regardless of R version being used.
  available_tb <- available_packages_tb(cran_repo_url=
                  "https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/4.2")    

Installation

Install the package from GitHub with devtools.

devtools::install_github("datasciencescotland/rpkgchecker@main")

Example

This shows a possible workflow using the available functions.

library(rpkgchecker) # load the rpkgchecker package

# get a tibble of available packages with 1 dependent package per row
available_long_tb <- available_packages_long()

# filter to a specific package, here "fabletools"
# this will get all dependencies by querying its dependency tree recursively
search_tb <- search_requirements(available_long_tb, "fabletools")

# get all existing packages stored on a shared server as windows binaries
server_tb <- existing_server_packages("//s1428a/R_Packages/R_3_6_3_Packages")

# compare the required packages with those on the server currently and indicate
# which need to be acquired or upgraded
compare_tb <- compare_available_server(search_tb, server_tb)

# return and export a csv file of just those packages need to request
# i.e. not on server currently or need upgrading
request_tb <- export_required_packages(compare_tb, "C:/repos")

Searching dependencies for all existing packages on a server

In locked down IT situations, might have a server inside the organisation’s firewall storing R packages for install internally.

The functions in this package can be used to refresh the download links for the latest package versions corresponding to current R release and check for any new package dependencies.

# get a tibble of available packages with 1 dependent package per row
available_long_tb <- available_packages_long()

# get all packages stored on a shared server as windows binaries
server_tb <- existing_server_packages("//s1428a/R_Packages/R_3_6_3_Packages")

# search for all existing server packages, depdendent packages 
# and return package versions and links corresponding to current R release.
search_multiple_tb <- search_requirements_multiple(available_long_tb, 
                                                   server_tb$server_package)

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