Get DESCRIPTION

The Liam Neeson of DESCRIPTION file functions.

1. I will look for you,

2. I will find you,

3. —and I will import you into a neatly parsed R object.

Uses a variety of alternative methods, including searching locally and on GitHub (whenever possible). Prioritises the fastest methods that do not involve downloading files first.

get_description(
  refs = NULL,
  paths = here::here("DESCRIPTION"),
  db = NULL,
  cache_dir = tools::R_user_dir(package = "rworkflows", which = "cache"),
  force_new = FALSE,
  use_wd = TRUE,
  use_repos = FALSE,
  repo = c("BioCsoft", "BioCann", "BioCexp", "BioCworkflows", "CRAN"),
  verbose = TRUE
)

Arguments

refs

Reference for one or more GitHub repository in owner/repo format (e.g."neurogenomics/rworkflows"), or an R package name (e.g. "rworkflows").

paths

Paths to DESCRIPTION file(s) R package(s).

db

A data.table of R package metadata generated by biocPkgList.

cache_dir

Directory where to cache downloaded files.

force_new

Ignore cached files and re-download them instead.

use_wd

Search the local working directory (and the one above it) for DESCRIPTION files.

use_repos

Use R standard R package repositories like CRAN and Bioc to find DESCRIPTION files.

repo

character(1) The requested Bioconductor repository. The default is to pull from the "BioCsoft" repository. Possible repositories include "BioCsoft", "BioCexp", "BioCworkflows", "BioCann", and "CRAN". Note that not all repos are available for all versions, particularly older versions.

verbose

Print messages.

Value

A named list of packageDescription objects.

Examples

d <- get_description(refs="neurogenomics/rworkflows")