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https://github.com/r-hub/pkgsearch

Search R packages on CRAN
https://github.com/r-hub/pkgsearch

cran package r r-package ranking rstats search-engine

Last synced: about 2 months ago
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Search R packages on CRAN

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
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```{r, setup, echo = FALSE, message = FALSE}

knitr::opts_chunk$set(

  comment = "#>",

  tidy = FALSE,

  error = FALSE,

  fig.width = 8,

  fig.height = 8)

options(width = 90)

options(max.print = 200)

```



## Installation



Install the latest pkgsearch release from CRAN:



```r

install.packages("pkgsearch")

```



The development version is on GitHub:



```r

pak::pak("r-hub/pkgsearch")

```



## Usage



### Search relevant packages



Do you need to find packages solving a particular problem, e.g.

"permutation test"?



```{r search}

library("pkgsearch")

library("pillar") # nicer data frame printing

pkg_search("permutation test")

```



pkgsearch uses an [R-hub](https://docs.r-hub.io) web service and a careful

ranking that puts popular packages before less frequently used ones.



### Do it all *clicking*



For the search mentioned above, and other points of entry to CRAN metadata,

you can use pkgsearch RStudio add-in!



[![Addin screencast](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/r-hub/pkgsearch/main/gifs/addin.gif)](https://vimeo.com/375618736)



Select the "CRAN package search" addin from the menu, or start it with

`pkg_search_addin()`.



### Get package metadata



Do you want to find the dependencies the first versions of `testthat` had

and when each of these versions was released?



```{r history}

cran_package_history("testthat")

```



### Discover packages



Do you want to know what packages are trending on CRAN these days?

`pkgsearch` can help!



```{r trend}

cran_trending()

cran_top_downloaded()

```



### Keep up with CRAN



Are you curious about the latest releases or archivals?



```{r}

cran_events()

```



## Search features



### More details



By default it returns a short summary of the ten best search hits. Their

details can be printed by using the `format = "long"` option of `pkg_search()`,

or just calling `pkg_search()` again, without any arguments, after a search:



```{r}

library(pkgsearch)

pkg_search("C++")

```



```{r}

pkg_search()

```



### Pagination



The `more()` function can be used to display the next batch of search hits,

batches contain ten packages by default. `ps()` is a shorter alias to

`pkg_search()`:



```{r}

ps("google")

```



```{r}

more()

```



### Stemming



The search server uses the stems of the words in the indexed metadata, and

the search phrase. This means that "colour" and "colours" deliver the

exact same result. So do "coloring", "colored", etc. (Unless one is happen

to be an exact package name or match another non-stemmed field.)



```{r}

ps("colour", size = 3)

ps("colours", size = 3)

```



### Ranking



The most important feature of a search engine is the ranking of the results.

The best results should be listed first. pkgsearch uses weighted scoring,

where a match in the package title gets a higher score than a match in the

package description. It also uses the number of reverse dependencies and

the number of downloads to weight the scores:



```{r}

ps("colour")[, c("score", "package", "revdeps", "downloads_last_month")]

```



### Preferring Phrases



The search engine prefers matching whole phrases over single words.

E.g. the search phrase "permutation test" will rank coin higher than

testthat, even though testthat is a much better result for the single word

"test". (In fact, at the time of writing testthat is not even on the first

page of results.)



```{r}

ps("permutation test")

```



If the whole phrase does not match, pkgsearch falls back to individual

matching words. For example, a match from either words is enough here,

to get on the first page of results:



```{r}

ps("test http")

```



### British vs American English



The search engine uses a dictionary to make sure that package metadata

and queries given in British and American English yield the same results.

E.g. note the spelling of colour/color in the results:



```{r}

ps("colour")

ps("color")

```



### Ascii Folding



Especially when searching for package maintainer names, it is convenient

to use the corresponding ASCII letters for non-ASCII characters in search

phrases. E.g. the following two queries yield the same results. Note that

case is also ignored.



```{r}

ps("gabor", size = 5)

ps("Gábor", size = 5)

```



## Configuration



### Options



* `timeout`: pkgsearch follows the `timeout` options for HTTP requests

  (i.e. for `pkg_search()` and `advanced_search()`. `timeout` is the limit

  for the total time of the HTTP request, and it is in seconds. See

  `?options` for details.



## More info



See the [complete documentation](https://r-hub.github.io/pkgsearch/).



## License



MIT @ [Gábor Csárdi](https://github.com/gaborcsardi),

[RStudio](https://github.com/rstudio),

[R Consortium](https://www.r-consortium.org/).