R Observatory: Metrics for Characterization version 4.1.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

Characterization

4.1.0Package record

Implement Descriptive Studies Using the Common Data Model

0packages depend

6.8Kdownloads / year

88.0%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Jenna RepsCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗

An end-to-end framework that enables users to implement various descriptive studies for a given set of target and outcome cohorts for data mapped to the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership Common Data Model.

Install

R (CRAN)pak (dev)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("Characterization", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("OHDSI/Characterization")

Development version from OHDSI/Characterization. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-characterization

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-Characterization

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-Characterization

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 6.6 min · r-oldrel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-09-29
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-09-04
OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-06-09

Show 8 earlier changesHide 8 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK13 OK2026-05-24
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-05-17
OK13 OK2026-05-15
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-05-13
OK14 OK2026-04-06
ERROR13 OK, 1 ERROR2026-04-04
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 4.1.0

README· In the repository, left out of the releaseVignettesYes · 2 · dynamicNEWS· In the repository, left out of the releaseCitation fileNoWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 21 (1 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 95%19 run in a plain check · 1 hold no code
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 89%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (2)

How these are measured

Downloads

6.8K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #4,672 · ~19/day · ~563/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

78630 days

1.8K90 days

6.8K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on187 r2u19 autocran

How downloads are counted

Repository

ohdsi/characterization ↗Organization: OHDSI

3Stars

6Forks

8Open issues

0Open PRs

20Releases

290Commits

11Commit identities

290 commits · Last activity 2026-09-16

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 82%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 132
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

Stars over time

2023-03-16 · 32026-07-07 · 3

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

8 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 5 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/ohdsi/characterization on 2026-10-18.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

The R CMD check workflow runs on Linux, macOS and Windows

Governance and community (1)

PR template

Docs source (3)

pkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-09-23 · The repository has a site deploy workflow

Coverage (1)

Coverage reporting

Show all practicesHide 1 practice

Lint, format, editor (1)

RStudio project

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v3 (2026-09-26)

AI coding toolsBeta

This repository shows signs of AI coding tools.

GitHub Copilotfirst seen 2026-03-25
Seen in the repository: .github/copilot-instructions.md

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (updated 2026-09-27)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

22 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing Characterization adds 61 packages (35 with compiled code, 41 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: stringi 11 MB, duckdb 4.6 MB, RSQLite 4.2 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 4.0.0

Imports (11)

Andromeda DatabaseConnector digest FeatureExtraction SqlRender ParallelLogger ResultModelManager checkmate dplyr readr rlang

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (11)

CohortIncidence devtools formatR testthat kableExtra knitr markdown rmarkdown OhdsiShinyAppBuilder shiny withr

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

0direct

0indirect

Nothing depends on this yet.

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (3)

Jenna Reps

Author, Maintainer since 2.1.3 (2025)

Chris Knoll

Author

Patrick Ryan

Author

Releases (5)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

4.1.0Latest
record
2026-09-16 · current release · diff ↗ ·
removed 3 exports
computeDechallengeRechallengeAnalyses, computeRechallengeFailCaseSeriesAnalyses, computeTimeToEventAnalyses

added 2 exports
createCohortIncidenceSettings, createStudyPopulationSettings
3.0.1
record
2026-05-15 · diff ↗
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
3.0.0
record
2026-03-25 · diff ↗ ·
removed 1 export
createAggregateCovariateSettings

added 3 exports
createCaseSeriesSettings, createRiskFactorSettings, createTargetBaselineSettings
2.2.0
record
2025-09-10 · diff ↗
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
2.1.3
record
2025-03-04
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24

Package metadata

First published: 2025-03-04
Total releases: 5 / 1 yrs
License: Apache License 2.0 OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.0.0
Download size: 4.1 MB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("Characterization")

Format

Reps, J., Knoll, C., & Ryan, P. (2026). Characterization: Implement Descriptive Studies Using the Common Data Model (Version 4.1.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.Characterization

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for Characterization version 4.1.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-21. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-21, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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