Retrieving all releases for a specific R package

Question

What are available r tools to obtain list of all releases for a specific R CRAN package.
There is expected to retrieve at least Dates each package version was released. Other metadata for each package are in value too.

• self-promotion of my new CRAN package https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=pacs

Answer 1

TL;DR

• pacs::pac_timemachine
• pkgsearch::cran_package_history
• pkgdown:::pkg_timeline (non-exported and only Date of publish)

pacs::pac_timemachine in pacs package.

pacs::pac_timemachine is using CRAN website or crandb.

head(pacs::pac_timemachine("tidyr"), 3)
#>   Package Version   Released   Archived LifeDuration
#> 2   tidyr     0.1 2014-07-21 2015-09-08     414 days
#> 3   tidyr   0.2.0 2015-09-08 2015-09-08       0 days
#> 4   tidyr   0.3.0 2015-09-08 2015-09-10       2 days
#>                                URL Size
#> 2   Archive/tidyr/tidyr_0.1.tar.gz 134K
#> 3 Archive/tidyr/tidyr_0.2.0.tar.gz 139K
#> 4 Archive/tidyr/tidyr_0.3.0.tar.gz 147K
tail(pacs::pac_timemachine("tidyr"), 3)
#>    Package Version   Released   Archived LifeDuration
#> 25   tidyr   1.1.1 2020-07-31 2020-08-27      27 days
#> 26   tidyr   1.1.2 2020-08-27 2021-03-03     188 days
#> 1    tidyr   1.1.3 2021-03-03       <NA>     192 days
#>                                 URL Size
#> 25 Archive/tidyr/tidyr_1.1.1.tar.gz 859K
#> 26 Archive/tidyr/tidyr_1.1.2.tar.gz 861K
#> 1                tidyr_1.1.3.tar.gz <NA>

We could get the result for certain Date or Date interval or version too.

pacs::pac_timemachine("tidyr", at = as.Date("2018-01-01"))
pacs::pac_timemachine("tidyr", version = "1.0.0")
pacs::pac_timemachine("tidyr", from = as.Date("2020-06-01"), to = as.Date("2020-08-01"))

^{Created on 2021-09-11 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

the pkgsearch package.

This one is builded under private DB which is systematically appended with new DESCRIPTION files for each CRAN package.

head(pkgsearch::cran_package_history("tidyr"), 3)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 25
#>   Package Title    Version `Authors@R`    Description    License LazyData URL   
#>   <chr>   <chr>    <chr>   <chr>          <chr>          <chr>   <chr>    <chr> 
#> 1 tidyr   Easily … 0.1     "'Hadley Wick… tidyr is an e… MIT + … true     https…
#> 2 tidyr   Easily … 0.2.0   "as.person(c(… An evolution … MIT + … true     https…
#> 3 tidyr   Easily … 0.3.0   "c(<U+000a>pe… An evolution … MIT + … true     https…
#> # … with 17 more variables: VignetteBuilder <chr>, Packaged <chr>,
#> #   Author <chr>, Maintainer <chr>, NeedsCompilation <chr>, Repository <chr>,
#> #   Date/Publication <chr>, crandb_file_date <chr>, date <chr>,
#> #   dependencies <list>, BugReports <chr>, RoxygenNote <chr>, Remotes <chr>,
#> #   MD5sum <chr>, Encoding <chr>, SystemRequirements <chr>,
#> #   Config/testthat/edition <chr>
tail(pkgsearch::cran_package_history("tidyr"), 3)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 25
#>   Package Title           Version `Authors@R` Description License LazyData URL  
#>   <chr>   <chr>           <chr>   <chr>       <chr>       <chr>   <chr>    <chr>
#> 1 tidyr   Tidy Messy Data 1.1.1   "\nc(perso… "Tools to … MIT + … true     http…
#> 2 tidyr   Tidy Messy Data 1.1.2   "\nc(perso… "Tools to … MIT + … true     http…
#> 3 tidyr   Tidy Messy Data 1.1.3   "\nc(perso… "Tools to … MIT + … true     http…
#> # … with 17 more variables: VignetteBuilder <chr>, Packaged <chr>,
#> #   Author <chr>, Maintainer <chr>, NeedsCompilation <chr>, Repository <chr>,
#> #   Date/Publication <chr>, crandb_file_date <chr>, date <chr>,
#> #   dependencies <list>, BugReports <chr>, RoxygenNote <chr>, Remotes <chr>,
#> #   MD5sum <chr>, Encoding <chr>, SystemRequirements <chr>,
#> #   Config/testthat/edition <chr>

^{Created on 2021-09-11 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

pkgdown package

pkgdown:::pkg_timeline function in pkgdown package. It is a non-exported function so sb have to take that into account. It returns only Date when each package version was published.