R Observatory: Metrics for NCA version 5.0.2

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

NCA

5.0.2Package record

Necessary Condition Analysis

2packages depend

15.3Kdownloads / year

1.7%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Govert BuijsCRAN page ↗Website ↗

Performs a Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). (Dul, J. 2016. Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). ''Logic and Methodology of 'Necessary but not Sufficient' causality." Organizational Research Methods 19(1), 10-52) doi:10.1177/1094428115584005. NCA identifies necessary (but not sufficient) conditions in datasets, where x causes (e.g. precedes) y. Instead of drawing a regression line ''through the middle of the data'' in an xy-plot, NCA draws the ceiling line. The ceiling line y = f(x) separates the area with observations from the area without observations. (Nearly) all observations are below the ceiling line: y <= f(x). The empty zone is in the upper left hand corner of the xy-plot (with the convention that the x-axis is ''horizontal'' and the y-axis is ''vertical'' and that values increase ''upwards'' and ''to the right''). The ceiling line is a (piecewise) linear non-decreasing line: a linear step function or a straight line. It indicates which level of x (e.g., an effort, a characteristic) is necessary but not sufficient for a (desired or undesired) level of y (e.g., good performance or disease). A quick start guide for using this package can be found here: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/78323/ or https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2624981.

Changes in 5.0.2

nca_output: Fix bug when using corner with multiple independent variables
nca_difference: Fixate seed for each permuation test
nca_difference: Move to common_scope instead of 2 independent scopes
nca_difference: Fix bug: environment variables on Windows

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

install.packages("NCA", 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-nca

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-NCA

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-NCA

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: 4.2 min · r-oldrel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

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

Show 2 earlier changesHide 2 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 5.0.2

READMENoVignettesNoNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 5.0.2Citation fileNoWebsiteYes

Help pages: 19includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 91%10 run in a plain check · 1 only when donttest examples are enabled (R CMD check --as-cran)
Exported functions with examples: 63%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 13%
Help pages citing references: 5%

How these are measured

Downloads

15.3K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #3,234 · ~42/day · ~1.3K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

1.4K30 days

3.6K90 days

15.3K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on134 r2u4 autocran

How downloads are counted

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

12 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing NCA adds 81 packages (45 with compiled code, 76 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: stringi 11 MB, ggplot2 6.0 MB, data.table 5.7 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.5.0

Imports (12)

gplots quantregKernSmoothlpSolve ggplot2 doParallel foreach iterators plotly truncnorm DBI RSQLite

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (1)

testthat

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

2direct

0indirect

Imports 2

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

SCAtools NSCA

How these are counted

Code & Tests

Datasets

People & History

People (2)

Govert Buijs

Maintainer · added in 4.0.2

Jan Dul

Author

Maintainer since 1.0 (2015)

Releases (24)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

5.0.2Latest
record
2026-06-17 · current release · diff ↗
5.0.1
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2026-04-28 · diff ↗
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
5.0.0
record
2026-03-20 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
nca_powerplot, nca_extract, nca_util_normalize, nca_difference
4.0.5
record
2025-12-21 · diff ↗
4.0.4
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2025-11-14 · diff ↗
4.0.3
record
2025-10-14 · diff ↗
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
4.0.2
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2024-11-09 · diff ↗
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
4.0.1
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2024-02-23 · diff ↗
4.0.0
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2024-02-16 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
nca_random, nca_power
3.3.3
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2023-09-05 · diff ↗
3.3.2
record
2023-06-27 · diff ↗
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
3.3.1
record
2023-02-10 · diff ↗

Show 20 earlier eventsHide 20 earlier events

3.3.0
record
2023-02-06 · diff ↗
3.2.1
record
2022-09-15 · diff ↗
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
3.2.0
record
2022-04-05 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
nca_outliers
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
3.1.1
record
2021-05-03 · diff ↗
3.1.0
record
2021-03-02 · diff ↗
3.0.3
record
2020-06-11 · diff ↗
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
3.0.2
record
2019-11-22 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
point.color
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
3.0.1
record
2018-08-21 · diff ↗
3.0
record
2018-08-01 · diff ↗
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21
2.0
record
2016-05-18 · diff ↗ ·
removed 1 export
pattern:^[^p\\_]

added 8 exports
nca, nca_analysis, nca_output, ceilings, line.colors, line.types, line.width, point.type
R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
1.1
record
2015-10-10 · diff ↗
1.0
record
2015-07-02
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16

Package metadata

First published: 2015-07-02
Total releases: 24 / 11 yrs
License: GPL (>= 3) OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 3.5.0
Bundled data: 1.2 KB / 3 files
Download size: 71 KB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("NCA")

Format

Buijs, G., & Dul, J. (2026). NCA: Necessary Condition Analysis (Version 5.0.2) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.NCA

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 NCA version 5.0.2 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-17. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-17, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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