1  Create a new package

• Create a new package by first installing devtools and then running

  install.packages("devtools")
  devtools::create("mynewpackage")

• This will generate

  ✔ Setting active project to '/Users/tom/Documents/GitHub/r-pkg-tips/mynewpackage'
  ✔ Creating 'R/'
  ✔ Writing 'DESCRIPTION'Package: mynewpackage
  Title: What the Package Does (One Line, Title Case)
  Version: 0.0.0.9000
  Authors@R (parsed):
      * First Last <first.last@example.com> [aut, cre] (YOUR-ORCID-ID)
  Description: What the package does (one paragraph).
  License: `use_mit_license()`, `use_gpl3_license()` or friends to
      pick a license
  Encoding: UTF-8
  Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
  RoxygenNote: 7.2.0
  ✔ Writing 'NAMESPACE'
  ✔ Writing 'mynewpackage.Rproj'
  ✔ Adding '^mynewpackage\\.Rproj$' to '.Rbuildignore'
  ✔ Adding '.Rproj.user' to '.gitignore'
  ✔ Adding '^\\.Rproj\\.user$' to '.Rbuildignore'
  ✔ Setting active project to '<no active project>'

• As seen in RStudio Files pane (nb. even though there is a .gitignore file this folder is not initialised as a Git repo yet - look for .git folder)

  

• Double click the .Rproj file to open in RStudio as an RStudio project - this gives you the very helpful Build pane

  

• If you are working on an existing package define folder/repo as an RStudio project (.Rproj file) to get the very helpful Build pane

  • https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/200526207-Using-Projects
  • Key line in the .Rproj file is: BuildType: Package (None/Package/Makefile/Website/Custom) - Build pane appears for all but None

• Initialise the folder as a Git repo: usethis::use_git()

• Now edit/complete the obvious fields in the DESCRIPTION file

• Not all of these files will be put into our package, e.g., when we build the source package at the moment only the DESCRIPTION and NAMESPACE files are included (as our R and man directories are empty)

  

• To prove the contents of the .tar.gz file are currently only