Question

I’m creating a custom R package repository and would like to replicate the CRAN archive structure whereby old versions of packages are stored in the src/contrib/Archive/packageName/directory. I’d like to use the install_version function in devtools (source here), but that function is dependent on having a CRAN-like archive structure instead of having all package versions in src/contrib/.

Are there any R package repository management tools that facilitate the creation of this directory structure and other related tasks (e.g. updating the Archive.rds file)?

It would also be nice if the management tools handled the package type logic on the repository side so that I can use the same install.packages() or install_version() code on a Linux server as on my local Mac (i.e. I don’t have to use type="both" or type="source" when installing locally on a Mac).

Answer 1

Short answer:
Not really for off-the-shelf use.

Long answer:
There are a couple of tools that one can use to manage their repo, but there isn’t a coherent off-the-shelf ecosystem yet.

The CRAN maintainers keep a bevy of scripts here to manage the CRAN repository, but it’s unclear how they all work together or which parts are needed to update the package index, run package checks, or manage the directory structure.

The tools::write_PACKAGES function can be used to update the package index, but this needs to be updated each time a package is added, updated, or removed from the repository.

M.eik Michalke has created the roxyPackage package, which has the ability to automatically update a given repository, install it, etc. The developer has also recently added the ability to have the archive structure mimic that of CRAN with the archive_structure function. The downside is the package isn’t on CRAN and would probably be better if integrated with devtools. It’s also brand new and isn’t ready for wide use yet.

Finally, I created a small Ruby script that watches a given repository and updates the package index if any files change. However, this is made to work for my specific organization and will need to be refactored for external use. I can make it more general if anyone is interested in it.