pacs & rdevdash

Author

Maciej Nasinski

pacs is a versatile toolkit designed to simplify life for developers and maintainers of R packages. Whether you’re validating package dependencies, exploring the complexity of an application, or checking CRAN statuses, pacs streamlines these essential tasks into a single, accessible workflow. pacs provides reliable, up-to-date insights for anyone serious about building and maintaining robust R ecosystems.

Key Features

  1. Library Validation
    Quickly detect errors and potential conflicts in your local environment or renv lock files with concise, easy-to-interpret diagnostics.

  2. Complexity and Size Analysis
    Evaluate package size (in bytes) and its dependencies to spot large footprints or performance bottlenecks. This functionality also extends to Shiny apps, helping you pinpoint areas for optimization.

  3. Version Life Duration and CRAN Checks
    Easily assess how long a specific package version has been out and retrieve CRAN’s check page statuses for errors, warnings, or notes—all in one place.

  4. Version File Retrieval and Comparison
    Download and compare DESCRIPTION or NAMESPACE files across different package versions, making it simple to track changes or replicate historical setups.

  5. Release History
    Quickly fetch an entire list of releases for a specific package, including those from Bioconductor (partial support), for insight into versioning timelines and dependencies.

  6. Caching and Speed
    Internet-based queries are automatically memoized for 30 minutes using the memoise package, dramatically speeding up repeated calls within a session.

Use Cases

  • Package Validation: Quickly verify your renv or system environment for missing, outdated, or conflicting dependencies.
  • Shiny Application Optimization: Determine your Shiny app’s dependency load and overall size to improve performance.
  • Continuous Integration: Incorporate pacs checks into CI pipelines to catch potential CRAN or Bioconductor issues early.
  • Historical Package States: Retrieve older versions of dependencies to replicate past environments for debugging or reproducible research.

Installation

  • CRAN:

    install.packages("pacs")

  • Development Version:

    # install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("polkas/pacs")

Examples

  • Library Validation:

    pacs::lib_validate()

  • CRAN Check Statuses for All Packages:

    pacs::checked_packages()

  • Retrieve All CRAN Releases of a Package:

    pacs::pac_timemachine("dplyr")

  • Compare Dependencies Across Versions:

    pacs::pac_compare_versions("shiny", "1.0.0", "1.5.0")

  • Identify Heavy Dependencies:

    pacs::pac_deps_heavy("caret")

Achievements

pacs won a poster panel at the Ruser conference, underscoring its innovative approach to package validation and maintenance in the R ecosystem.

Project Details & Community

Developed and maintained by Maciej Nasinski, pacs is licensed under the MIT License, ensuring an open and collaborative environment for contributions. For complete documentation, including function references, code examples, and advanced usage, visit the pacs website or explore the Functions Reference.

By offering a structured workflow for package validation and analysis, pacs empowers R developers to build more reliable, efficient, and maintainable software. Whether you’re auditing a single package or a large pipeline, pacs brings clarity and speed to your entire development process.

rdevdash

rdevdash (R Package Developer Dashboard) is a comprehensive, Shiny-based application that streamlines the process of tracking and managing CRAN packages. Built on top of the pacs toolkit, rdevdash offers a unified interface for visualizing package downloads, comparing versions, analyzing dependencies, and retrieving essential details about any CRAN package.

Key Dashboard Features

  1. Package Information
    Quickly access package meta-data (e.g., latest version, license, maintainer, and more).

  2. Package Downloads
    Visualize historical download statistics, making it easy to compare trends over time.

  3. Version Differences
    Compare changes across multiple versions to track feature additions, bug fixes, or dependency evolutions.

  4. CRAN Check Results
    Stay informed about potential build issues or errors flagged in CRAN check logs.

  5. Package Dependencies
    Explore user and developer dependencies to better understand the impact of your package within the R ecosystem.

  6. CRAN Releases
    View the entire release history of a package in one convenient location.

Powered by pacs

The pacs package underpins rdevdash, providing the core functionality for querying CRAN, analyzing dependencies, and comparing package versions. By leveraging pacs, rdevdash ensures real-time updates and fast retrieval of comprehensive package data.

Try It Out

Explore rdevdash live at polkas.shinyapps.io/rdevdash to see how it can optimize your R package development workflow. Whether you’re a solo developer or managing multiple packages, rdevdash offers the tools you need to stay on top of version control, CRAN checks, and usage trends—so you can focus more on creating and maintaining high-quality R packages, and less on manual tracking or guesswork.