Lockfiles

A lockfile records the state of a project at some point in time.

Usage

lockfile_create(
  type = settings$snapshot.type(project = project),
  libpaths = .libPaths(),
  packages = NULL,
  exclude = NULL,
  prompt = interactive(),
  force = FALSE,
  ...,
  project = NULL
)

lockfile_read(file = NULL, ..., project = NULL)

lockfile_write(lockfile, file = NULL, ..., project = NULL)

lockfile_modify(
  lockfile = NULL,
  ...,
  remotes = NULL,
  repos = NULL,
  project = NULL
)

Arguments

type

The type of snapshot to perform:

"implict", (the default), uses all packages captured by dependencies().
"explicit" uses packages recorded in DESCRIPTION.
"all" uses all packages in the project library.
"custom" uses a custom filter.

See Snapshot type below for more details.

libpaths

The library paths to be used when generating the lockfile.

packages

A vector of packages to be included in the lockfile. When NULL (the default), all packages relevant for the type of snapshot being performed will be included. When set, the type argument is ignored. Recursive dependencies of the specified packages will be added to the lockfile as well.

exclude

A vector of packages to be explicitly excluded from the lockfile. Note that transitive package dependencies will always be included, to avoid potentially creating an incomplete / non-functional lockfile.

prompt

Boolean; prompt the user before taking any action? For backwards compatibility, confirm is accepted as an alias for prompt.

force

Boolean; force generation of a lockfile even when pre-flight validation checks have failed?

...

Unused arguments, reserved for future expansion. If any arguments are matched to ..., renv will signal an error.

project

The project directory. If NULL, then the active project will be used. If no project is currently active, then the current working directory is used instead.

file

A file path, or R connection.

lockfile

An renv lockfile; typically created by either lockfile_create() or lockfile_read().

remotes

An R vector of remote specifications.

repos

A named vector, mapping R repository names to their URLs.

Details

A lockfile captures the state of a project's library at some point in time. In particular, the package names, their versions, and their sources (when known) are recorded in the lockfile.

Projects can be restored from a lockfile using the restore() function. This implies reinstalling packages into the project's private library, as encoded within the lockfile.

While lockfiles are normally generated and used with snapshot() / restore(), they can also be edited by hand if so desired. Lockfiles are written as .json, to allow for easy consumption by other tools.

An example lockfile follows:

{
  "R": {
    "Version": "3.6.1",
    "Repositories": [
      {
        "Name": "CRAN",
        "URL": "https://cloud.r-project.org"
      }
    ]
  },
  "Packages": {
    "markdown": {
      "Package": "markdown",
      "Version": "1.0",
      "Source": "Repository",
      "Repository": "CRAN",
      "Hash": "4584a57f565dd7987d59dda3a02cfb41"
    },
    "mime": {
      "Package": "mime",
      "Version": "0.7",
      "Source": "Repository",
      "Repository": "CRAN",
      "Hash": "908d95ccbfd1dd274073ef07a7c93934"
    }
  }
}

The sections used within a lockfile are described next.

renv

Information about the version of renv used to manage this project.

Version

The version of the renv package used with this project.

R

Properties related to the version of R associated with this project.

Version	The version of R used.
Repositories	The R repositories used in this project.

Packages

R package records, capturing the packages used or required by a project at the time when the lockfile was generated.

Package	The package name.
Version	The package version.
Source	The location from which this package was retrieved.
Repository	The name of the repository (if any) from which this package was retrieved.
Hash	(Optional) A unique hash for this package, used for package caching.

Additional remote fields, further describing how the package can be retrieved from its corresponding source, will also be included as appropriate (e.g. for packages installed from GitHub).

Python

Metadata related to the version of Python used with this project (if any).

Version	The version of Python being used.
Type	The type of Python environment being used ("virtualenv", "conda", "system")
Name	The (optional) name of the environment being used.

Note that the Name field may be empty. In that case, a project-local Python environment will be used instead (when not directly using a system copy of Python).

Caveats

These functions are primarily intended for expert users -- in most cases, snapshot() and restore() are the primariy tools you will need when creating and using lockfiles.