announce/packrat-0.3.0.md

In rstudio/packrat: A Dependency Management System for Projects and their R Package Dependencies

We're very excited to announce Packrat 0.3.0! A number of bug and API refinements have made their way into this release. Some noteworthy additions in this release:

1. Automatic snapshots that automatically update your lockfile when non-destructive changes occur to your library (e.g. after an install.packages call, we can automatically update the lockfile to record any new packages),
2. Packrat integration with the latest release of RStudio will make using Packrat with your projects easier than ever,
3. Packrat projects now gain project-specific options, allowing you to control a number of features -- please see ?"packrat-options" for more details; with current new options:
4. auto.snapshot: Control whether automatic, asynchronous snapshots are performed,
5. vcs.ignore.lib: Ignore the packrat/lib/ folder with version control systems?
6. vcs.ignore.src: Ignore the packrat/src/ folder with version control systems?
7. print.banner.on.startup: Print the packrat banner on startup?
8. external.packages: Load packages from the user library on initialization? Useful for e.g. large Bioconductor annotation packages which you may not want to duplicate across projects.
9. Packrat does its best to ensure explicit R session restarts commissioned by the user are not required, and leverages RStudio to handle restarts when necessary,
10. Packrat has gained (provisional) support for R package development, although work here is still ongoing.

With the added RStudio integration, keeping your projects isolated and reproducible should be easier than ever.

A full set of NEWS items follows:

Packrat 0.3.0

• The packrat/bootstrap.R script has been renamed to packrat/init.R.

• Fixed a bug in packrat::set_opts() where NULL entries were not handled correctly.

• packrat::user_lib() and packrat::packrat_lib() can be used to query the locations for the user library and packrat library, respectively.

• packrat::install_github() works as a dependency-free devtools::install_github(), and ensures Packrat projects using GitHub packages do not have an implicit dependency on devtools.

• packrat::disable() can be used to disable Packrat on a project -- it removes the autoloader from the .Rprofile and turns off Packrat mode. (If you want to fully clean out the packrat library / sources, you will have to delete the packrat/ subdirectory explicitly)

• packrat::packrat_mode() has been refactored into two separate functions: packrat::on() and packrat::off().

• .Rmd files are now parsed for YAML dependencies (for rmarkdown dependencies).

• Recommended packages (e.g. lattice) are now only taken as Packrat dependencies if explicitly installed by the user -- for example, if you want to include lattice (which is distributed with R, but updated on CRAN) in Packrat, you must explicitly call install.packages("lattice") to get that package into the private library.

• packrat::snapshot() now takes available.packages() as a default argument to available, assisting in dependency inference for packages inferred yet not installed.

• packrat::snapshot() now takes the state of the library, along with dependencies inferred in the code, as 'truth' -- any packages installed or inferred will now be entered into the lockfile on a packrat::snapshot() call (with caveats for 'recommended' packages, e.g. lattice)

• packrat::snapshot() no longer installs missing packages.

• Failed packrat::inits now clean up any files / directories generated.

• packrat::bootstrap has been renamed to packrat::init -- packrat::bootstrap remains as a (deprecated) alias.

• Repositories are now stored in the lockfile as key-value pairs, and these repositories are used on startup. This mechanism will allow for more granular control over which repositories are valid, as well as for custom (e.g. non-CRAN) repositories.

• Isolation is now achieved using a different mechanism on OS X. Because user libraries can be installed into the 'system' library on OS X, we work around this by symlinking all 'base' and 'recommended' libraries into a private packrat 'system' library, and using that instead.

• Packrat gains project-specific options. packrat/packrat.opts is a DCF file of project-specific settings that can be queried and set through packrat::get_opts and packrat::set_opts. Please see ?"packrat-options" for more information.

• Packrat can now handle source package tarballs, in addition to source folders.

• API functions have been appropriately snake_cased and function arguments have been dot.cased. We apologize for any broken workflows here; but we imagine that most of use of packrat is done through calls to exported functions with no arguments passed, so this shouldn't disrupt most workflows.

• Packrat has introduced support for R packages -- you should now be able to develop R packages using packrat to manage your dependencies. Work here is on-going and feedback is appreciated.

• search_path() allows you to discover which packages are currently attached, and from which library each package has been loaded from.

• status() now (invisibly) returns a data.frame outlining the current status of your project, in addition to printing information to the console.

• packrat::on now attempts to clean the search path when entering packrat mode. Any packages loaded from the user library will be unloaded before entering packrat mode.

• The init.R script has been updated to work better with bundle / unbundle: after bundleing a packrat project, one should be able to initialize a new project using a combination of unbundle and source('packrat/init.R').

• Migration scripts for Windows users have been added to packrat, to migrate user libraries away from the system library, to provide the library separation that Packrat requires.

rstudio/packrat documentation built on Feb. 5, 2024, 9:17 p.m.