README.md

In bmewing/VersionControl: Version Control Packages Used in Code

VersionControl

Overview

VersionControl is a method of enabling side-by-side installation of different versions of the same R package to enable improved versioning of package use in R code with the overall motivation of improving reproducibility. Core challenges in R now are:

• Locking your repository to a particular checkpoint doesn't allow you to use updated packages in new code
• Locking your repository also doesn't help with ensuring old code still works
• Packing installed libraries to your project adds bulk to the project size
• Packing installed libraries also requires that you potentially install the same version of the same package repeatedly to satisfy differing requirements
• Existing methods aren't explicit about what version of a package is being used in the code itself

These issues are addressed with two functions, vcInstall and vcLibrary which explicitly state the package and the required version when installing and loading libraries. By creating a new set of directories near your primary library, VersionControl manages to install differing versions of the same package side-by-side which enables reuse by other scripts without needing to reinstall. Package versions are installed by leveraging Microsoft's MRAN to ensure that the correctly versioned dependencies are also available.

Installation

# Currently, the only way to install the package is via:
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("bmewing/VersionControl")

If you encounter a clear bug, please file a minimal reproducible example on github.

Usage

library(VersionControl)

vcInstall('coin','1.1x')
#This will install the most recent version of the package coin with a version of at least 1.1 but not 1.2 or higher
#Available as of November 29, 2016 as version 1.1-3 at the link below
#https://mran.microsoft.com/snapshot/2016-11-29/web/packages/coin/index.html

vcInstall('coin','1.1-3')
#Identical to the version above

vcInstall('coin','1.1-3',type='windows')
#The type argument indicates we want to install the Windows binary version of the package instead of from source
#Available as of November 30, 2016 from MRAN

vcInstall('coin','1.1-2')
#This will install a second version of the package coin alongside the previously installed version.

vcLibrary('coin','1.1-3')
#This will load version 1.1-3 of coin even though the last version installed was 1.1-2

vcLibrary('coin','1.1-2')
#This will trigger a reloading of the R environment because you cannot have two different versions of a package loaded at the same time.

bmewing/VersionControl documentation built on May 23, 2019, 7:21 a.m.