cff_read: Read an external file as a 'cff' object

In cffr: Generate Citation File Format ('CFF') Metadata

Read an external file as a cff object

Description

Read files and convert them to cff objects. Supported files are:

• CITATION.cff files.

• DESCRIPTION files.

• R citation files (usually located in inst/CITATION).

• BibTeX files (with extension ⁠*.bib⁠).

cff_read() attempts to guess the type of file provided in path. However, we provide aliases for each specific file type:

• cff_read_cff_citation(), which uses yaml::read_yaml().

• cff_read_description(), which uses desc::desc().

• cff_read_citation(), which uses utils::readCitationFile().

• cff_read_bib(), which requires bibtex (>= 0.5.0) and uses bibtex::read.bib().

Usage

cff_read(path, ...)

cff_read_cff_citation(path, ...)

cff_read_description(
  path,
  cff_version = "1.2.0",
  gh_keywords = TRUE,
  authors_roles = c("aut", "cre"),
  ...
)

cff_read_citation(path, meta = NULL, ...)

cff_read_bib(path, encoding = "UTF-8", ...)

Arguments

path	A path to a file.
...	Arguments passed to other functions, for example to yaml::read_yaml() or bibtex::read.bib().
cff_version	The Citation File Format schema version used for the generated metadata.
gh_keywords	A logical value. If TRUE and the package is hosted on GitHub, add the repository topics as keywords.
authors_roles	Roles to be considered as authors of the package when generating the CITATION.cff file. See Details.
meta	A list of package metadata as obtained by utils::packageDescription() or NULL (the default). See Details.
encoding	Encoding to be assumed for path. See base::readLines().

Details

For details of cff_read_description(), see cff_create().

The meta object

Section 1.9 CITATION files of Writing R Extensions (R Core Team 2026) specifies how to create dynamic CITATION files using a meta object. Therefore, the meta argument in cff_read_citation() may be needed to read some files correctly.

Value

• cff_read_cff_citation() and cff_read_description() return an object with class cff.

• cff_read_citation() and cff_read_bib() return an object of classes cff_ref_lst, cff as defined by the definitions.reference specified in the following guide: Citation File Format schema guide.

Learn more about the cffr class system in cff_class.

References

R Core Team (2026). Writing R Extensions. https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html.

Hernangómez D (2022). "BibTeX and CFF, a potential crosswalk." cffr vignette. https://docs.ropensci.org/cffr/articles/bibtex-cff.html.

See Also

The underlying functions used for reading external files:

• yaml::read_yaml() for CITATION.cff files.

• desc::desc() for DESCRIPTION files.

• utils::readCitationFile() for R citation files.

• bibtex::read.bib() for BibTeX files (extension ⁠*.bib⁠).

Read external citation metadata: cff_read_bib_text()

Work with BibTeX metadata: as_bibentry(), cff_read_bib_text(), cff_write_bib(), encoded_utf_to_latex()

Examples

# Create a `cff` object from a `CITATION.cff` file.
from_cff_file <- cff_read(system.file("examples/CITATION_basic.cff",
  package = "cffr"
))

head(from_cff_file, 7)

# Create a `cff` object from DESCRIPTION.
from_desc <- cff_read(system.file("examples/DESCRIPTION_basic",
  package = "cffr"
))

from_desc

# Create a `cff` object from BibTeX.
if (requireNamespace("bibtex", quietly = TRUE)) {
  from_bib <- cff_read(system.file("examples/example.bib",
    package = "cffr"
  ))

  # First item only.
  from_bib[[1]]
}
# Create a `cff` object from CITATION.
from_citation <- cff_read(system.file("CITATION", package = "cffr"))

# First item only.
from_citation[[1]]

cffr documentation built on Aug. 24, 2026, 5:11 p.m.