pkginfo: Tools for Retrieving R Package Information
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Motivation
There are several wonderful tools for retrieving information about R packages, some of which are listed below:
- cranlogs, dlstats and packageRank for R package download stats
- pkgsearch and packagefinder for searching CRAN R packages
- crandb provides API for programatically accessing meta-data
- cchecks for CRAN check results
We have used some or all of these to track/monitor our own R packages available on CRAN. Over time, we wanted to have a single interface which would retrieve information from different places including:
- check results from CRAN
- issues & pull requests from GitHub
- build status from Travis and Appveyor
- code coverage from Codecov
- questions tagged with the package name in Stack Overflow
And below is a demo of what we came up with…
The above shiny app can be launched with:
pkginfo::pkginfo_dashboard()
Introduction
pkginfo will allow you to retrieve information from multiple places. The shiny app is especially useful if you are looking for information about multiple R packages. pkginfo provides two APIs, one is object oriented, the other one is procedural, and in this post, we will show you how to use them.
Installation
You can install the development version from GitHub with:
devtools::install_github("rsquaredacademy/pkginfo")
Object Oriented API
The object oriented API uses R6 classes.
library(pkginfo)
GitHub
Creating a new GitHubRepo object
myRepo <- GitHubRepo$new("olsrr", "rsquaredacademy")
Stars, Forks & Issues
get_stats() will report the number of stars, forks and open issues.
myRepo$get_stats() ## # A tibble: 1 x 3 ## stars issues forks ## <int> <int> <int> ## 1 77 26 11
Issues
get_issues() will report the date, number, author and title of all the open issues.
myRepo$get_issues() ## # A tibble: 26 x 4 ## date number author title ## <date> <int> <chr> <chr> ## 1 2019-06-20 133 aravindhebba~ Cook's distance chart threshold ## 2 2018-12-27 129 aravindhebba~ Bonferroni outlier test ## 3 2018-12-24 126 aravindhebba~ Heteroskedasticity corrected covariance~ ## 4 2018-12-24 125 aravindhebba~ Test linear hypothesis ## 5 2018-12-24 124 aravindhebba~ Ceres plot ## 6 2018-12-22 123 aravindhebba~ Power transformations ## 7 2018-12-22 122 aravindhebba~ Box Tidwell transformation ## 8 2018-12-22 121 aravindhebba~ Box Cox transformation ## 9 2018-12-21 120 aravindhebba~ Wald test ## 10 2018-12-21 119 aravindhebba~ Reset test ## # ... with 16 more rows
Branches
get_branches() will report the name of the branches.
myRepo$get_branches() ## # A tibble: 2 x 1 ## branches ## <chr> ## 1 develop ## 2 master
Procedural API
GitHub
To use the procedural API for retrieving GitHub information, you need to provide the following inputs:
- package/repo name
- GitHUb user/organization name (optional)
If you do not know the GitHub user/org name, leave it empty. pkginfo will look for the user/org name in the URLS available on the CRAN page of the package.
Stars, Forks & Issues
get_gh_stats("olsrr", "rsquaredacademy")
## # A tibble: 1 x 3
## stars issues forks
## <int> <int> <int>
## 1 77 26 11
Issues
get_gh_issues("olsrr", "rsquaredacademy")
## # A tibble: 26 x 4
## date number author title
## <date> <int> <chr> <chr>
## 1 2019-06-20 133 aravindhebba~ Cook's distance chart threshold
## 2 2018-12-27 129 aravindhebba~ Bonferroni outlier test
## 3 2018-12-24 126 aravindhebba~ Heteroskedasticity corrected covariance~
## 4 2018-12-24 125 aravindhebba~ Test linear hypothesis
## 5 2018-12-24 124 aravindhebba~ Ceres plot
## 6 2018-12-22 123 aravindhebba~ Power transformations
## 7 2018-12-22 122 aravindhebba~ Box Tidwell transformation
## 8 2018-12-22 121 aravindhebba~ Box Cox transformation
## 9 2018-12-21 120 aravindhebba~ Wald test
## 10 2018-12-21 119 aravindhebba~ Reset test
## # ... with 16 more rows
CRAN Check Results
The CRAN check results is reported using the cchecksapi API.
get_pkg_cran_check_results("olsrr")
## # A tibble: 12 x 4
## os r status url
## <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
## 1 linux-x86_64-de~ devel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 2 linux-x86_64-de~ devel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 3 linux-x86_64-fe~ devel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 4 linux-x86_64-fe~ devel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 5 windows-ix86+x8~ devel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 6 linux-x86_64 patch~ OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 7 solaris-x86 patch~ OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 8 linux-x86_64 relea~ OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 9 windows-ix86+x8~ relea~ OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 10 osx-x86_64 relea~ OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 11 windows-ix86+x8~ oldrel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
## 12 osx-x86_64 oldrel OK https://www.R-project.org/nosvn/R.check/~
Build Status
You can check the build status of a package from both Travis CI and Appveyor.
Travis CI
get_status_travis("olsrr", "rsquaredacademy")
## [1] "Failure"
Appveyor
get_status_appveyor("olsrr", "rsquaredacademy")
## [1] "failed"
Code Coverage
Report code coverage for the package from the coverage service Codecov. We hope to add coverage from Coveralls in the near future.
get_code_coverage("olsrr", "rsquaredacademy")
## [1] "82.83485"
Stack Overflow
Questions tagged with the package name will be displayed from Stack Overflow.
get_so_questions("dplyr")
## # A tibble: 30 x 6
## date title owner answered views link
## <date> <chr> <chr> <lgl> <int> <chr>
## 1 2019-07-05 Merging values fro~ Jake S~ FALSE 4 https://stackover~
## 2 2019-07-05 Change dataframe s~ D. Stu~ TRUE 40 https://stackover~
## 3 2018-06-05 if_else() `false` ~ stacki~ TRUE 3686 https://stackover~
## 4 2019-07-05 Aligning two dataf~ Nix TRUE 36 https://stackover~
## 5 2019-07-05 Transpose specific~ Pratik~ FALSE 25 https://stackover~
## 6 2018-10-07 dplyr-- how to do ~ Micah TRUE 39 https://stackover~
## 7 2019-07-05 Display by color g~ "thoma~ FALSE 25 https://stackover~
## 8 2019-07-05 How to use paste o~ Basant~ FALSE 20 https://stackover~
## 9 2019-07-05 How to define a fu~ Hamideh TRUE 50 https://stackover~
## 10 2019-07-04 R: how to use user~ Sangwo~ TRUE 27 https://stackover~
## # ... with 20 more rows
To Do..
In the near future, pkginfo will retrieve information:
- about packages that are available on GitHub/GitLab but not on CRAN
- packages that are available on GitLab
- about code coverage from Coveralls
- about Twitter mentions
We did not have any specific end user in mind while developing but believe it will be more useful to package developers/maintainers. Suggestions/feedbacks and pull requests are always welcome.
If you see mistakes or want to suggest changes, please create an issue on the source repository or reach out to us at [email protected].
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