Skip to content

A "standalone" file implements a minimum set of functionality in such a way that it can be copied into another package. use_standalone() makes it easy to get such a file into your own repo.

It always overwrites an existing standalone file of the same name, making it easy to update previously imported code.

Usage

use_standalone(repo_spec, file = NULL, ref = NULL, host = NULL)

Arguments

repo_spec

A string identifying the GitHub repo in one of these forms:

  • Plain OWNER/REPO spec

  • Browser URL, such as "https://github.com/OWNER/REPO"

  • HTTPS Git URL, such as "https://github.com/OWNER/REPO.git"

  • SSH Git URL, such as "git@github.com:OWNER/REPO.git"

file

Name of standalone file. The standalone- prefix and file extension are optional. If omitted, will allow you to choose from the standalone files offered by that repo.

ref

The name of a branch, tag, or commit. By default, the file at path will be copied from its current state in the repo's default branch. This is extracted from repo_spec when user provides a URL.

host

GitHub host to target, passed to the .api_url argument of gh::gh(). If repo_spec is a URL, host is extracted from that.

If unspecified, gh defaults to "https://api.github.com", although gh's default can be customised by setting the GITHUB_API_URL environment variable.

For a hypothetical GitHub Enterprise instance, either "https://github.acme.com/api/v3" or "https://github.acme.com" is acceptable.

Supported fields

A standalone file has YAML frontmatter that provides additional information, such as where the file originates from and when it was last updated. Here is an example:

---
repo: r-lib/rlang
file: standalone-types-check.R
last-updated: 2023-03-07
license: https://unlicense.org
dependencies: standalone-obj-type.R
imports: rlang (>= 1.1.0)
---

Two of these fields are consulted by `use_standalone()`:

- `dependencies`: A file or a list of files in the same repo that
  the standalone file depends on. These files are retrieved
  automatically by `use_standalone()`.

- `imports`: A package or list of packages that the standalone file
   depends on. A minimal version may be specified in parentheses,
   e.g. `rlang (>= 1.0.0)`. These dependencies are passed to
   [use_package()] to ensure they are included in the `Imports:`
   field of the `DESCRIPTION` file.

Note that lists are specified with standard YAML syntax, using
square brackets, for example: `imports: [rlang (>= 1.0.0), purrr]`.


[use_package()]: R:use_package()
[rlang (>= 1.0.0), purrr]: R:rlang%20(%3E=%201.0.0),%20purrr

Examples

if (FALSE) {
use_standalone("r-lib/rlang", file = "types-check")
use_standalone("r-lib/rlang", file = "types-check", ref = "standalone-dep")
}