When developing an R package, do I have to recompile the package every time I make a change?

Question

I am developing a package in R

When I am debugging a particular function or set of functions, what is the best way to test the function?

Do I have to either use source('function.R') or R CMD build each time I want to check my changes?

(extra credit for associated emacs ess key-bindings)

Answer 1

See also http://github.com/hadley/devtools/ which provides some tools to make this task easier.

for example, after making changes to source code, you build, install, and reload a package with the function install():

library(devtools)
install("package_name")

devtools also makes it easier to:

• Reload complete package:

  load_all("pkg")
  

• Create or update documentation using roxygen2

  document("pkg")
  

• run all scripts in /inst/test/:

  test("pkg")
  

• build and R CMD check:

  check("pkg")