[R-pkg-devel] Writing a data package with large files

[Alex Hallam]

Thanks. This is exactly what I needed.

Thanks
-Alex

On Sat, Jul 6, 2019 at 10:10 AM Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:

>
> On 6 July 2019 at 09:27, Alex Hallam wrote:
> | I have been working on making a data package. The goal is to one day push
> | it to CRAN, but I am having 2 problems (one warning and one note) from R
> | CMD. I think the problems are due to having large files (a 453M csv.7z
> raw
> | file and a 75M .rda file)
>
> Well that is in excess of what the manual ("Writing R Extensions") and the
> CRAN Repo Policy allow.
>
> So I suggest you think about other ways for users to get your data. Brooke
> and I once described a particular approach here:
>
>   https://journal.r-project.org/archive/2017/RJ-2017-026/index.html
>
> and I include the main gist / abstract:
>
>   Hosting Data Packages via drat: A Case Study with Hurricane Exposure
> Data
>   G. Brooke Anderson and Dirk Eddelbuettel
>   The R Journal (2017) 9:1, pages 486-497.
>
>   Abstract Data-only packages offer a way to provide extended functionality
>   for other R users. However, such packages can be large enough to exceed
> the
>   package size limit (5 megabytes) for the Comprehen sive R Archive Network
>   (CRAN). As an alternative, large data packages can be posted to
> additional
>   repostiories beyond CRAN itself in a way that allows smaller code
> packages
>   on CRAN to access and use the data. The drat package facilitates creation
>   and use of such alternative repositories and makes it particularly simple
>   to host them via GitHub. CRAN packages can draw on packages posted to
> drat
>   repositories through the use of the ‘Additonal_repositories’ field in the
>   DESCRIPTION file. This paper describes how R users can create a suite of
>   coordinated packages, in which larger data packages are hosted in an
>   alternative repository created with drat, while a smaller code package
> that
>   interacts with this data is created that can be submitted to CRAN.
>
> Hth, Dirk
>
> --
> http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org
>


-- 

Thanks!
-Alex

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