The goal of pkgbuild is to make it easy to build packages with compiled code. It provides tools to configure your R session, and check that everything is working ok. If you are using RStudio, it also helps you trigger automatic install of the build tools.

Install the released version from CRAN

install.packages("pkgbuild")

Or install the development version from GitHub:

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("r-lib/pkgbuild")

# Check that you have the build tools installed
pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE)

# Build a package
pkgbuild::build("/path/to/my/package")

# Run your own code in an environment guaranteed to
# have build tools available
pkgbuild::with_build_tools(my_code)

• Config/build/clean-inst-doc can be set to FALSE to avoid cleaning up inst/doc when building a source package. Set it to TRUE to force a cleanup. See the clean_doc argument of build() as well.

• Config/build/copy-method can be used to avoid copying large directories in R CMD build. It works by copying (or linking) the files of the package to a temporary directory, leaving out the (possibly large) files that are not part of the package. Possible values:

  • none: pkgbuild does not copy the package tree. This is the default.
  • copy: the package files are copied to a temporary directory before R CMD build.
  • link: the package files are symbolic linked to a temporary directory before R CMD build. Windows does not have symbolic links, so on Windows this is equivalent to copy.

  You can also use the pkg.build_copy_method option or the PKG_BUILD_COPY_METHOD environment variable to set the copy method. The option is consulted first, then the DESCRIPTION entry, then the environment variable.

• Config/build/extra-sources can be used to define extra source files for pkgbuild to decide whether a package DLL needs to be recompiled in needs_compile(). The syntax is a comma separated list of file names, or globs. (See ?utils::glob2rx().) E.g. src/rust/src/*.rs or configure*.

• pkg.build_copy_method: use this option to avoid copying large directories when building a package. See possible values above, at the Config/build/copy-method DESCRIPTION entry.

• pkg.build_extra_flags: set this to FALSE to to opt out from adding debug compiler flags in compile_dll(). Takes precedence over the PKG_BUILD_EXTRA_FLAGS environment variable. Possible values:

  • TRUE: add extra flags,
  • FALSE: do not add extra flags,
  • "missing": add extra flags if the user does not have a $HOME/.R/Makevars file.

• pkg.build_stop_for_warnings: if it is set to TRUE, then pkgbuild will stop for R CMD build errors. It takes precedence over the PKG_BUILD_STOP_FOR_WARNINGS environment variable.

• PKG_BUILD_COLOR_DIAGNOSTICS: set it to false to opt out of colored compiler diagnostics. Set it to true to force colored compiler diagnostics.

• PKG_BUILD_COPY_METHOD: use this environment variable to avoid copying large directories when building a package. See possible values above, at the Config/build/copy-method DESCRIPTION entry.

• PKG_BUILD_EXTRA_FLAGS: set this to false to to opt out from adding debug compiler flags in compile_dll(). The pkg.build_extra_flags option takes precedence over this environment variable. Possible values:

  • "true": add extra flags,
  • "false": do not add extra flags,
  • "missing": add extra flags if the user does not have a $HOME/.R/Makevars file.

• PKG_BUILD_STOP_FOR_WARNINGS: if it is set to true, then pkgbuild will stop for R CMD build errors. The pkg.build_stop_for_warnings option takes precedence over this environment variable.

Please note that the pkgbuild project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.