renv (version 0.7.0-7)

init: Initialize a Project

Description

Discover packages used within the current project, and then initialize a project-local private R library with those packages. The currently-installed versions of any packages in use (as detected within the default R libraries) are then installed to the project's private library.

Usage

init(project = NULL, ..., settings = NULL, bare = FALSE,
  force = FALSE, restart = interactive())

Arguments

project

The project directory. The R working directory will be changed to match the requested project directory.

...

Optional arguments; reserved for future expansion.

settings

A list of settings to be used with the newly-initialized project.

bare

Boolean; initialize the project without attempting to discover and install R package dependencies?

force

Boolean; force initialization? By default, renv will refuse to initialize the home directory as a project, to defend against accidental misusages of init().

restart

Boolean; attempt to restart the R session after initializing the project? A session restart will be attempted if the "restart" R option is set by the frontend embedding R.

Infrastructure

renv will write or amend the following files in the project:

• .Rprofile: An auto-loader will be installed, so that new R sessions launched within the project are automatically loaded.

• renv/activate.R: This script is run by the previously-mentioned .Rprofile to load the project.

• renv/.gitignore: This is used to instruct Git to ignore the project's private library, as it does not need to be

• .Rbuildignore: to ensure that the renv directory is ignored during package development; e.g. when attempting to build or install a package using renv.

Details

The primary steps taken when initializing a new project are:

1. R package dependencies are discovered within the R files used within the project with dependencies();

2. Discovered packages are copied into the renv global package cache, so these packages can be re-used across future projects as necessary;

3. Any missing R package dependencies discovered are then installed into the project's private library;

4. A lockfile capturing the state of the project's library is created with snapshot();

5. The project is activated with activate().

This mimics the workflow provided by packrat::init(), but with a few differences -- in particular, renv does not attempt to download and store package sources, and renv will re-use packages that have already been installed whenever possible.

If renv sees that the associated project has already been initialized and has a lockfile, then it will attempt to infer the appropriate action to take based on the presence of a private library. If no library is available, renv will restore the private library from the lockfile; if one is available, renv will ask if you want to perform a 'standard' init, restore from the lockfile, or activate the project without taking any further action.

Examples

# NOT RUN {
# disable automatic snapshots
auto.snapshot <- getOption("renv.config.auto.snapshot")
options(renv.config.auto.snapshot = FALSE)

# initialize a new project (with an empty R library)
renv::init(bare = TRUE)

# install digest 0.6.19
renv::install("digest@0.6.19")

# save library state to lockfile
renv::snapshot()

# remove digest from library
renv::remove("digest")

# check library status
renv::status()

# restore lockfile, thereby reinstalling digest 0.6.19
renv::restore()

# restore automatic snapshots
options(renv.config.auto.snapshot = auto.snapshot)

# }