documentation/howto_create.md

In bniebuhr/howtoRpackage: Tips to create R packages

How to create R packages

Bernardo Niebuhr, Elie Gurarie

This is a tutorial on a few steps to create R packages.

0) Check if the name you chose to your package is available

library(available)

available("howtoRpackage", browse = F)

1) Create the R package within R

We can create the structure of a package using the function create_package from the usethis package. This create the very minimal structure before building the package.

library(usethis)

# create the package structure
usethis::create_package("howtoRpackage")

2) Create README and define a license

One can define a license by hand or using a few pre-determined functions from the usethis package. If we use the function, this will modify both the DESCRIPTION file and also add a LICENSE.md file.

# Begin readme
usethis::use_readme_md()

# Define GPL3 as our license
usethis::use_gpl3_license(name = "Bernardo Niebuhr, Elie Gurarie et al")

3) Add some functions

Now we add some functions. We can create them by hand (just copy and paste now) within the R folder. Now we can build

4) Add packages upon which the functions depend

# Necessary packages
usethis::use_package("sp", type = "Imports")

# Suggested packages
usethis::use_package("plyr", type = "Suggests")

5) Add data - now we add both raw and ready to use

First we create the raw-data folder using the use_data_raw function. It will also create a script for preparation of the raw data into the R data format, .rda.

# add raw data
usethis::use_data_raw()

Now, we put the our dataset in the data-raw folder. Then we can edit the script for preparing the dataset. There we read and prepare the data, then we save it as .rda using, e.g. the function usethis::use_data or save():

# read data
juveniles <- read.csv("data-raw/subsetGPSlocs.csv")

# create data for use in the Rpackage
usethis::use_data(juveniles, overwrite = TRUE)

# or
dir.create("data/")
save(juveniles, file = "data/juveniles.rda")

6) Use the package

Now we can use the package, and then save this as an example script on how to use our functions.

7) Add some roxyxen2 documentation to the script

We can add some info to the functions, using the roxygen2 notation, and it will be transformed into documentation in the man folder.

usethis::use_git(message = "initial commit")

usethis::use_github()

bniebuhr/howtoRpackage documentation built on Dec. 19, 2021, 10:43 a.m.