R: How can I install a specific release by install_github()?

Question

If the current version of a package, gives some errors, users may prefer to install a specific release (e.g. version 1.0.1). What kind of R code can be used to achieve that?

Take for example for the release of the latest OhdsiRTools R packages:

https://github.com/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/tree/v1.0.1

The command something like:

install_github("OHDSI/OhdsiRTools", ref = 'v1.0.1') 

The code above is not correct. It only works for branches (e.g., master or devA). But the devtools package has functions to refer to releases.

Ideally I would refer to releases by their tag (but solution with commit ID would work too).

EXTRA BONUS: What code can install "latest" release. (but consider this a bonus question. The question about is the main one)

Answer 1

You need to append tags for releases directly onto the name of the repository argument. So, username/repo@releasetag will work. Only use the parameter ref = "devA" when you need to refer to a specific branch of the git repository.

For your example, regarding OhdsiRTools v1.0.1, we have

we have:

devtools::install_github("OHDSI/[email protected]") 

Edit

After toying around with devtools source, it has come to my attention that one can request the latest source with:

username/repo@*release 

Hence, you could use:

devtools::install_github("OHDSI/OhdsiRTools@*release") 

End Edit

Outdated, see edit

Unfortunately, to obtain the latest release tag, the work for that is a bit more complicated as it would involve parsing a response from the GitHub API. Here are some notes if you really do need the tagged version... You would have to parse JSON from:

https://api.github.com/repos/<user>/<repo>/releases/latest 

using either RJSONIO, jsonlite, rjson

To extract "tag_name" from:

{   "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/releases/2144150",   "assets_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/releases/2144150/assets",   "upload_url": "https://uploads.github.com/repos/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/releases/2144150/assets{?name,label}",   "html_url": "https://github.com/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/releases/tag/v1.0.1",   "id": 2144150,   "tag_name": "v1.0.1",   "target_commitish": "master",   "name": "Minor bug fix",   "draft": false,   "author": {     "login": "schuemie",     "id": 6713328,     "avatar_url": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/6713328?v=3",     "gravatar_id": "",     "url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie",     "html_url": "https://github.com/schuemie",     "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/followers",     "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/following{/other_user}",     "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/gists{/gist_id}",     "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/starred{/owner}{/repo}",     "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/subscriptions",     "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/orgs",     "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/repos",     "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/events{/privacy}",     "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/schuemie/received_events",     "type": "User",     "site_admin": false   },   "prerelease": false,   "created_at": "2015-11-18T00:55:28Z",   "published_at": "2015-11-18T06:35:57Z",   "assets": [    ],   "tarball_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/tarball/v1.0.1",   "zipball_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/zipball/v1.0.1",   "body": "Fixed bug in `convertArgsToList ` function." } 

Above is taken from https://api.github.com/repos/OHDSI/OhdsiRTools/releases/latest