R Observatory: Metrics for Rtwalk version 2.1.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

Rtwalk

2.1.0Package record

An MCMC Sampler Using the t-Walk Algorithm

0packages depend

2.4Kdownloads / year

100.0%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Rodrigo Fonseca VillaCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Issues ↗

Implements the t-walk algorithm, a general-purpose, self-adjusting Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler for continuous distributions as described by Christen & Fox (2010) doi:10.1214/10-BA603. The t-walk requires no tuning and is robust for a wide range of target distributions, including high-dimensional and multimodal problems. This implementation includes an option for running multiple chains in parallel to accelerate sampling and facilitate convergence diagnostics.

Changes in 2.1.0

Algorithm correctness

Corrected the Blow-kernel proposal density to include only coordinates selected for movement, matching Christen & Fox (2010).
Bounded all Metropolis--Hastings acceptance probabilities to [0, 1] and moved their calculation to the log scale for numerical stability.
Preserved accepted identity proposals from the original t-walk transition kernel while reporting them separately from actual state movements.
Avoided repeated evaluations of the log posterior, reducing sequential execution to one evaluation per proposal plus the two initial evaluations.

Sampling and parallel execution

Added reproducible independent random-number streams for parallel chains; set.seed() now controls both sequential and parallel runs.

Show all changes in 2.1.0Hide the rest of the changes in 2.1.0

Parallel chains now preserve the supplied initial points and support constrained parameter spaces correctly.
Parallel execution now exports direct and recursively referenced log-posterior dependencies to worker processes.
Added consistent n_chains and total_iterations metadata in sequential and parallel results.

Output and diagnostics

Added separate samples and companion_samples trajectories. The legacy all_samples field remains available for compatibility but is not treated as one time-ordered chain.
Added move_rate and no_move_rate alongside the Metropolis--Hastings acceptance_rate.
Applied burn-in independently to each parallel chain and computed effective sample sizes without joining chain boundaries.
Unified sample and burn-in validation across diagnostics and visualization.

Interface and validation

Added the public show_progress argument. Additional arguments, including an argument named internal_call, are now passed exclusively to log_posterior.
Added clear validation for iteration counts, chains, cores, initial points, log-posterior return values, burn-in fractions, and parameter names.
Expanded regression tests for kernel mathematics, parallel reproducibility, constrained supports, dependency export, diagnostics, and edge cases.

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

install.packages("Rtwalk", 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("rodrigosqrt3/Rtwalk")

Development version from rodrigosqrt3/Rtwalk. 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-rtwalk

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-Rtwalk

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-Rtwalk

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: 1.6 min · r-release-macos-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-09-08
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-09-07
OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 2.1.0

READMEYes · 301 wordsVignettesYes · 1 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 2.1.0Citation fileNoWebsitenot declared in DESCRIPTION

Help pages: 12 (9 internal)
Examples that run: 100%3 run in a plain check (1 of them under a condition)
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 67%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (1)

Validation and Simulation Study HTML

How these are measured

Downloads

2.4K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #11,610 · ~7/day · ~200/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

33330 days

93790 days

2.4K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on94 r2u4 autocran

How downloads are counted

Repository

rodrigosqrt3/rtwalk ↗Account: rodrigosqrt3

0Stars

0Forks

0Open issues

0Open PRs

2Releases

48Commits

1Commit identities

48 commits · Last activity 2026-08-28

Responsiveness

not measured

Releases over time

2026-07-07 · 02026-08-29 · 2

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

3 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 2 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/rodrigosqrt3/rtwalk on 2026-10-22.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

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

Coverage (1)

Coverage reporting

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (2026-10-20)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

9 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing Rtwalk adds 1 package (0 with compiled code, 73 KB of source tarballs). Heaviest: coda 73 KB.

Depends (0)

none

Imports (7)

codetoolsparallelstatsutilsgraphicsgrDevicescoda

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (8)

testthat covr mvtnorm devtools roxygen2 knitr rmarkdown ellipse

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

0direct

0indirect

Nothing depends on this yet.

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (1)

Rodrigo Fonseca Villa

Author, Maintainer since 2.0.0 (2026) · added in 2.0.0

Previously maintained by J Andres Christen (1.8.0).

Listed in earlier versions (1)

J Andres Christen

no longer listed · 1.8.0

Releases (5)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

2.1.0Latest
record
2026-08-28 · current release · diff ↗
2.0.2
record
2026-07-30 · diff ↗
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
2.0.1
record
2026-02-05 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
calculate_diagnostics, visualize_results
unarchivedReturned to CRAN
2026-02-02
2.0.0
record
2026-02-02 · diff ↗ ·
removed 7 exports
Runtwalk, OneMove, PlotLogObj, PlotHist, SaveOutput, Ana, TS

added 1 export
twalk
archivedRemoved from CRAN
2025-06-17
issues were not corrected despite reminders
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21

Show 3 earlier eventsHide 3 earlier events

R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
1.8.0
record
2015-09-18
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16

Package metadata

First published: 2015-09-18
Total releases: 5 / 11 yrs
License: GPL-3 OSI
Download size: 109 KB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("Rtwalk")

Format

Villa, R. F. (2026). Rtwalk: An MCMC Sampler Using the t-Walk Algorithm (Version 2.1.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.Rtwalk

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 Rtwalk version 2.1.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-25. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-25, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

Report a problem with this page →