Use a set of Packages — use • renv

Given a set of R package requirements, install those packages into the library path requested via library, and then activate that library path.

Usage

use(
  ...,
  lockfile = NULL,
  library = NULL,
  isolate = FALSE,
  sandbox = TRUE,
  attach = FALSE,
  verbose = TRUE
)

Arguments

...: The R packages to be used with this script. Ignored if lockfile is non-NULL.
lockfile: The lockfile to use. When supplied, renv will use the packages as declared in the lockfile.
library: The library path into which the requested packages should be installed. When NULL (the default), a library path within the R temporary directory will be generated and used. Note that this same library path will be re-used on future calls to renv::use(), allowing renv::use() to be used multiple times within a single script.
isolate: Boolean; should the active library paths be included in the set of library paths activated for this script? Set this to TRUE if you only want the packages provided to renv::use() to be visible on the library paths.
sandbox: Should the system library be sandboxed? See the sandbox documentation in config for more details. You can also provide an explicit sandbox path if you want to configure where renv::use() generates its sandbox. By default, the sandbox is generated within the R temporary directory.
attach: Boolean; should the set of requested packages be automatically attached? If TRUE, packages will be loaded and attached via a call to library() after install. Ignored if lockfile is non-NULL.
verbose: Boolean; be verbose while installing packages?

Value

This function is normally called for its side effects.

Details

renv::use() is intended to be used within standalone R scripts. It can be useful when you'd like to specify an R script's dependencies directly within that script, and have those packages automatically installed and loaded when the associated script is run. In this way, an R script can more easily be shared and re-run with the exact package versions requested via use().

renv::use() is inspired in part by the groundhog package, which also allows one to specify a script's R package requirements within that same R script.