System setup

You will need the following software installed and configured. Please have this set up and ready to go before we start.

Computing requirements

You will need:

Optional, but recommended:

Install R

I highly recommend installing R with rig, the R Installation Manager: https://github.com/r-lib/rig. It handles the fiddly parts for you, steers you into best practices, and lets you keep several versions of R side by side, which works great with Positron. Once rig is installed, getting the current release of R is:

rig add release

If you would rather not use rig, download and install R for your operating system from https://cloud.r-project.org/. Either way, use a recent version, ideally the current release.

Install Positron

Download and install Positron from https://positron.posit.co/download.html.

If you already have Positron, please make sure it is up to date. Positron updates often and we want everyone on the same version. Use Positron > Check for Updates… on macOS, or Help > Check for Updates… on Windows and Linux.

Everything in this session also works in RStudio or other development environment. The commands are all devtools and usethis function calls, which are IDE-agnostic. But the workshop will feature interactive workflows in Positron.

Install R package development tools

Some packages include C, C++, or Fortran code, which has to be compiled. You need a compiler toolchain in order to install such a package from source.

The package we will develop is pure R, so you’ll probably be fine without a compiler toolchain. But as you get deeper into package development, you will inevitably want to install something from source that has compiled code, so this is a nicetime to set it up.

For Windows

Download and run the latest Rtools installer from https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/. Be sure to get the Rtools version that matches your R version.

  • Keep the default settings for the installation location and components.
  • Do not select the box for “Edit the system PATH”. R-specific tooling puts Rtools on the PATH when it is needed.
  • Do select the box for “Save version information to registry”. It should be selected by default.

For Mac

Install the Xcode command line tools (full Xcode is not necessary). Open a terminal (in Positron, use the Terminal pane) and run:

xcode-select --install

You will be prompted to confirm the install, and possibly to enter your computer password.

For Linux

If you installed r-base-dev when you installed R, you should have all you need to build packages from source. If not, go back to https://cloud.r-project.org/ and follow the instructions for your distribution. On Ubuntu and Debian it is sudo apt-get install r-base-dev.

Install packages

In R, run:

install.packages("devtools")

That is enough. devtools is a meta-package and everything else we need, such as usethis, roxygen2, testthat, and pkgdown, comes along with it.

I personally use pak to install packages:

pak::pak("devtools")

You can verify your system is set up for package development by asking for a “development situation report”:

devtools::dev_sitrep()

This reports on your R version, your IDE, devtools itself, and whether any of your package development dependencies are out of date. If it flags something as missing or stale, update it.

Git and GitHub

Happy Git with R is the place to go for anything in this section that does not go smoothly.

We will use Git and GitHub to track changes and share our package. You can follow along without them, but you will get more out of the session if you have them working.

Git

Check whether you already have Git by running this in a terminal (in Positron, use the Terminal pane):

which git

If that reports a path, you’re set. If not, Happy Git has installation instructions for every platform.

GitHub account

Register at github.com, if you have not already.