Mid-year R Packages Update Summary

I been updating some existing packages and github-releasing new ones (before a CRAN push). Most are “cyber”-related, but there are some general purpose ones. Here’s a quick overview:

• docxtractr (CRAN, now, v0.2.0) was initially designed to make it easy to get data tables out of MS Word (docx) documents. The update removes use of a deprecated xml2 package function and adds the ability to extract comments from Word docs.
• slackr (CRAN, now v1.4.2) lets you pass R code, plots, data objects and arbitrary text to Slack from R. A Slack API change introduced some changes that broke the package. Said changes have been compensated for.
• iptools (GitHub, v0.5.0) makes it super easy and quick to work with IPv4 (and some IPv6) addresses in R. The dev updates add NA support to checkers/validators (by @quonimous), Hilbert-space coordinate generators and faster ways to test IPv4 address membership in CIDR blocks (one involves using the triebeard pkg by Oliver and works well with BGP dumps read in from mtr [below] and the other uses optimized integer searches).
• hubway (GitHub, v0.1.0) provides programmatic access to the JSON data from the bike-sharing service Hubway. I’m using it to build a predictive model of bike availability in Boston.
• myip (GitHub, v0.1.0) provides unified access to numerous “what’s my IP address?” services on the internet. May merge this with other work @wrathematics has been doing.
• mrt (GitHub, v0.1.0) small, C-backed package that wraps libBGPdump and reads Route Views MRT BGP dumps.
• algorithmia (GitHub, v0.1.0) provides an R wrapper to the Algorithmia web service, enabling use of a wide range of hosted algorithms using local or cloud data.
• ssllabs (GitHub, v0.1.0) provides an R wrapper to the SSL Labs (SSL/TLS cert checker) API
• accidents (GitHub v0.1.0) an R data page containing historical U.S. NHTSA accident data.
• htmltidy (GitHub, v0.1.0) an R wrapper to the HTML Tidy library that cleans up gnarly HTML/XHTML, making it easier to parse with rvest.
• gdns (GitHub, v0.1.0) an R wrapper to the Google “DNS over HTTPS” API.
• ohby (GitHub, v0.1.0) an R wrapper to the nascent ohby URL & content shortener

If any of the GitHub-only pkgs are of [major] use to folks, let me know and I’ll prioritize getting CI tests wired up and CRAN submissions started.

In other news, ggalt is gearing up for an August CRAN release, so if you have any ggplot2 extensions that need a home, fork that repo and PR them my way before the middle of the month.

Finally, I’ve had many folks contribute code and bug reports to packages and wanted to close with a YUGE “thank you!” to all of you who did so.