R Packages: Organize, Test, Document, and Share Your Code

by Hadley Wickham

Turn your R code into packages that others can easily download and use. This practical book shows you how to bundle reusable R functions, sample data, and documentation together by applying author Hadley Wickham’s package development philosophy. In the process, you’ll work with devtools, roxygen, and testthat, a set of R packages that automate common development tasks. Devtools encapsulates best practices that Hadley has learned from years of working with this programming language.

Ideal for developers, data scientists, and programmers with various backgrounds, this book starts you with the basics and shows you how to improve your package writing over time. You’ll learn to focus on what you want your package to do, rather than think about package structure.

Learn about the most useful components of an R package, including vignettes and unit testsAutomate anything you can, taking advantage of the years of development experience embodied in devtoolsGet tips on good style, such as organizing functions into filesStreamline your development process with devtoolsLearn the best way to submit your package to the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN)Learn from a well-respected member of the R community who created 30 R packages, including ggplot2, dplyr, and tidyr

Genres: Programming, Coding, Nonfiction, Science, Computer Science, Technical

202 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2015

Reviews

[Vysloczil · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE book you have to read if you develop your own statistical package for R. Like Advanced R, it is also available online for free at http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/

[Saptarishi Pandey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Built my first R package at work using this book! Still need to come back to it for learning more about CI/CD and automated testing. Didn't have much use-case for that in my package.

This book is the one-stop-solution for anyone trying to learn about how to build R packages using RStudio, ROxygen, devtools, and usethis! Use it like a referential textbook and go back to it as you build your own package.

[Rahul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for beginners and advanced useRs alike; gives great background on writing packages in R and the CRAN submission process.

Although the print version is slightly out-of-date, Hadley Wickham has the book available to read online free of charge (legally) and completely up-to-date.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to be terrified of writing R packages, but it is actually really simple using the step-by-step instructions in this book. Highly recommended for anyone looking to share their R code through a package.

[Huong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great source for beginners to have a fast and steady start.

[Kevin Yee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

[Francisco Yirá · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful, but some concepts are explained too briefly.

[Ferhat Culfaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly written in a nice and simple way. An essential read for any Reason user who wants to share code with their peers in open source or within their organisation.

[Charles Crabtree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to creating R packages. Very accessible to beginners.

[JDK1962 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. All hail the Wickham. Used this as a resource as I was trying to re-implement an existing hand-tooled package that I wrote a few years ago with nothing more than a text editor. Now I'm using RStudio, devtools, Git and GitHub, Roxygen2, clearing all the checks with not even notes, and I'm feeling much better about being able to confidently enhance the package going forward.

There were a few issues that kept me from going to five stars (mainly around when you follow the instructions, and things don't work), but overall, if you're building packages, this is pretty indispensable.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and thorough introduction to creating packages in R. Hadley de-mystifies R and makes it very easy to set up your first package on your computer. Since creating a package is so simple with this book and RStudio, getting a package on CRAN is more complicated than I had envisioned. But he is one of the best people to guide you through the process.

[Sumit · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive book on creating your own packages in R. Since it gives a good understanding of the internals of R packages, it is a book worth reading, even if you do not plan to build an R packages soon.

[Peter Baumgartner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some parts of this book (http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/) are already outdated.

UPDATE (2021-10-15)
There is a new edition in the making. See: Wickham, H., & Bryan, J. (n.d.). R Packages. Retrieved from https://r-pkgs.org/.

[Jono Tuke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear outline of how to create packages. If you need to create a package, do so with this book open.

[Chester Ismay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough and excellent description of how to create an R package to submit to CRAN. Highly recommended to all R users.

[John J Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure gold!

[Jennyliu]

How to write R packages