R Observatory: Metrics for ForestElementsR version 3.0.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

ForestElementsR

3.0.0Package record

Data Structures and Functions for Working with Forest Data

1packages depend

3.3Kdownloads / year

50.2%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Peter BiberCRAN page ↗

Provides generic data structures and algorithms for use with forest mensuration data in a consistent framework. The functions and objects included are a collection of broadly applicable tools. More specialized applications should be implemented in separate packages that build on this foundation. Documentation about 'ForestElementsR' is provided by three vignettes included in this package. For an introduction to the field of forest mensuration, refer to the textbooks by Kershaw et al. (2017) doi:10.1002/9781118902028, and van Laar and Akca (2007) doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-5991-9.

Changes in 3.0.0

Major overhaul of the species coding system.

Species codings may now be **hierarchical**: a species can appear both as an individual code and inside one or more coarser group codes of the same coding (a laminar family of species sets). Coding tables gained a level column (0 = finest leaf, higher numbers = coarser groups). bavrn_state and tum_wwk_long are now hierarchical.
Codings may carry **non-tree codes** — categories without a tree-species equivalent, such as the Bavarian state code 99 ("Strauch", shrub). Whether a code is a tree code is **derived** from its link to the species_master_table, so there is no separate flag to keep in sync. New exported helpers fe_species_is_tree() and fe_species_non_tree_codes() report this.

Show all changes in 3.0.0Hide the rest of the changes in 3.0.0

fe_stand() and its spatial children now **reject** non-tree species codes with a clear error.
Casting a non-tree code into another coding yields NA (with a message) instead of raising an error.
**Casting** into a hierarchical coding resolves each species to the finest code that contains it. A cast that loses information (aggregating finer codes into a coarser group) is now signalled with a **message** instead of a **warning**; forward-ambiguous casts still raise an error. A small documented dataset, species_cast_overrides, declares deliberate target codes for otherwise forward-ambiguous casts.
New exported, CSV-driven builders for maintaining the codings and the master table: master_template_csv(), master_table_from_csv(), coding_template_from_master(), coding_table_from_template(), and cast_overrides_from_csv(). Coding tables are now stored in a canonical row order (level, then code, then master key), and the builder rejects inconsistent or conflicting entries early.
Extended the species data: new Bavarian state forest species and codes, tum_wwk_long filled out with grouping levels and now covering all master species, and additional master species (e.g. the genera *Cedrus* and *Corylus*).
Added two cast overrides for bavrn_state -> tum_wwk_short: the oak group code 70 ("Eiche (Gruppe)") now resolves to 6 (oak), and the "other hardwood" code 80 ("Sonstige Laubhölzer") to 8 (other hardwood). Both casts were forward-ambiguous (70 straddles {6, 8} via red oak, 80 straddles {8, 9} hard/soft broadleaf) and therefore errored. This unblocks downstream casting of BaySF inventory data carrying these group codes.
New exported helper fe_species_get_field_table() returns a compact, field-usable lookup table for a coding: each code exactly once, with the coding's own species/group names (all three languages), plus the level and is_tree columns, in canonical order. Rendering it into a printable document is left to downstream packages.
The "Tree Species Codings" vignette was updated to cover the overhauled system: hierarchical codings and the level column, non-tree codes and is_tree, the finest-node cast and the cast-override mechanism, the cast information-loss message (formerly a warning), the new field table, and a rewritten "Information for developers" part documenting the CSV-driven builder workflow.

Other news

Exported the object validation helpers has_required_names, has_required_types_or_classes, has_no_missing_values, and is_distinct (previously internal). They remain marked with @keywords internal, but are now part of the public interface so that dependent packages (e.g. FeNEU) can call them with :: instead of relying on the non-exported ::: mechanism, which is not permitted on CRAN.
Promoted wood_density_tum_wwk_short from an internal object (in sysdata.rda) to a documented, exported dataset. It is now accessible as ForestElementsR::wood_density_tum_wwk_short.

***

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

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

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

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-forestelementsr

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-ForestElementsR

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-ForestElementsR

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: 5.2 min · r-release-macos-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-06-09
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK13 OK2026-05-07

Show 2 earlier changesHide 2 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-05-05
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 3.0.0

READMEYes · 1,740 wordsVignettesYes · 3 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 3.0.0Citation fileNoWebsitenot declared in DESCRIPTION

Help pages: 165 (37 internal)
Examples that run: 100%124 run in a plain check
Exported functions with examples: 95%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 10% with a bibliography file

Vignettes (3)

How these are measured

Downloads

3.3K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #9,286 · ~9/day · ~273/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

37130 days

1.1K90 days

3.3K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on108 r2u6 autocran

How downloads are counted

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

16 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing ForestElementsR adds 54 packages (33 with compiled code, 59 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: stringi 11 MB, sf 9.3 MB, ggplot2 6.0 MB.

Depends (2)

R >= 4.4sf

Imports (12)

magrittr ggplot2 tibble dplyr purrr rlang Rdpack tidyr vctrs stringr tidyselect doBy

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (3)

knitr rmarkdown testthat

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

1direct

0indirect

Depends 1

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

FeNEU

How these are counted

Code & Tests

Datasets

People & History

People (3)

Peter Biber

Astor Toraño Caicoya

Author

Torben Hilmers

Contributor

Releases (4)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

3.0.0Latest
record
2026-06-29 · current release · diff ↗ ·
added 12 exports
cast_overrides_from_csv, coding_table_from_template, coding_template_from_master, fe_species_get_field_table, fe_species_is_tree, fe_species_non_tree_codes, has_no_missing_values, has_required_names, has_required_types_or_classes, is_distinct, master_table_from_csv, master_template_csv
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
2.2.0
record
2025-10-29 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
get_center
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
2.1.0
record
2025-02-07 · diff ↗
2.0.1
record
2024-12-23
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24

Package metadata

First published: 2024-12-23
Total releases: 4 / 2 yrs
License: GPL (>= 3) OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.4
Bundled data: 125 KB / 40 files
Download size: 1.6 MB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("ForestElementsR")

Format

Biber, P., Hilmers, T., & Toraño Caicoya, A. (2026). ForestElementsR: Data Structures and Functions for Working with Forest Data (Version 3.0.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.ForestElementsR

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 ForestElementsR version 3.0.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-24. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-24, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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