Is there a function to check if a package installed with devtools::install_github has been updated?

Question

I am the author of a package storred on github. My colleagues install this package with devtools::install_github(). They would like to test if the package has been updated or not. Is there a function to check that there has been a commit to the github master branch since they last installed the package?

Answer 1

This is an indirect approach I am aware of You can then find your installed version by packageVersion()

There's a package available which goes by the name versions. The function available.versions() could help you. This will find you all the package versions ever available.

packageVersion("ggplot2")
#[1] ‘1.0.1’

available.versions("ggplot2")

#$ggplot2
#   version       date available
#1    1.0.1 2015-03-17      TRUE
#2    1.0.0 2014-05-21     FALSE
#3  0.9.3.1 2013-03-02     FALSE
...

Update:

Package devtools has functions package_deps() and dev_package_deps().

package_deps("ggplot2")

# Needs update -----------------------------
# package      installed available
# ggplot2      2.0.0     2.1.0    
# scales       NA        0.4.0   

?package_deps
"Find all dependencies of a CRAN or dev package."

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{This function is untested for development package from my end . However I believe this should do your job.}