---
title: "Devtools dependencies"
author: "Jim Hester, Hadley Wickham"
date: "`r Sys.Date()`"
output:
  rmarkdown::html_vignette:
    keep_md: true
vignette: >
  %\VignetteIndexEntry{Devtools dependencies}
  %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown}
  %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8}
---

# Package remotes

Devtools version 1.9 supports package dependency installation for packages not
yet in a standard package repository such as [CRAN](https://cran.r-project.org)
or [Bioconductor](http://bioconductor.org).

You can mark any regular dependency defined in the `Depends`, `Imports`,
`Suggests` or `Enhances` fields as being installed from a remote location by
adding the remote location to `Remotes` in your `DESCRIPTION` file. This will
cause devtools to download and install them prior to installing your package (so they won't be installed from CRAN).

The remote dependencies specified in `Remotes` should be described in the following form.

```
Remotes: [type::]<Repository>, [type2::]<Repository2>
```

The `type` is an optional parameter.  If the type is missing the default is
to install from GitHub. Additional remote dependencies should be separated by
commas, just like normal dependencies elsewhere in the `DESCRIPTION` file.

It is important to remember that you **must always declare the dependency in the usual way**, i.e. include it in `Depends`, `Imports`, `Suggests` or `Enhances`. The `Remotes` field only provides instructions on where to install the dependency from. In this example `DESCRIPTION` file, note how rlang appears in `Imports` and in `Remotes`:

```
Package: xyz
Title: What the Package Does (One Line, Title Case)
Version: 0.0.0.9000
Authors@R: 
    person(given = "First",
           family = "Last",
           role = c("aut", "cre"),
           email = "first.last@example.com")
Description: What the package does (one paragraph).
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Imports: 
    rlang
Remotes:  
    r-lib/rlang
```

### GitHub

Because GitHub is the most commonly used unofficial package distribution in R, it's the default:

```yaml
Remotes: hadley/testthat
```

You can also specify a specific hash, tag, or pull request (using the same syntax as `install_github()` if you want a particular commit. Otherwise the latest commit on the master branch is used.

```yaml
Remotes: hadley/httr@v0.4,
  klutometis/roxygen#142,
  hadley/testthat@c67018fa4970
```

A type of `github` can be specified, but is not required

```yaml
Remotes: github::hadley/ggplot2
```

### Other sources

All of the currently supported install sources are available, see the 'See
Also' section in `?install` for a complete list.

```yaml
# GitLab
Remotes: gitlab::jimhester/covr

# Git
Remotes: git::git@bitbucket.org:djnavarro/lsr.git

# Bitbucket
Remotes: bitbucket::sulab/mygene.r@default, djnavarro/lsr

# Bioconductor
Remotes: bioc::3.3/SummarizedExperiment#117513, bioc::release/Biobase

# SVN
Remotes: svn::https://github.com/hadley/stringr

# URL
Remotes: url::https://github.com/hadley/stringr/archive/master.zip

# Local
Remotes: local::/pkgs/testthat

# Gitorious
Remotes: gitorious::r-mpc-package/r-mpc-package
```

### CRAN submission

When you submit your package to CRAN, all of its dependencies must also be available on CRAN. For this reason, `release()` will warn you if you try to release a package with a `Remotes` field.
