R Observatory: Metrics for altmeta version 4.4

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

altmeta

4.4Package record

Alternative Meta-Analysis Methods

0packages depend

6.2Kdownloads / year

–test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Lifeng LinCRAN page ↗

Provides alternative statistical methods for meta-analysis, including: - bivariate generalized linear mixed models for synthesizing odds ratios, relative risks, and risk differences (Chu et al., 2012 doi:10.1177/0962280210393712) - tests and measures for between-study heterogeneity (Lin et al., 2017 doi:10.1111/biom.12543; Wang et al., 2022 doi:10.1002/sim.9261; Yu et al., 2025 doi:10.1186/s12874-025-02719-7); - measures, tests, and visualization tools for publication bias, small-study effects, or related bias (Lin and Chu, 2018 doi:10.1111/biom.12817; Lin, 2019 doi:10.1002/jrsm.1340; Lin, 2020 doi:10.1177/0962280220910172; Shi et al., 2020 doi:10.1002/jrsm.1415); - meta-analysis of combining standardized mean differences and odds ratios (Jing et al., 2023 doi:10.1080/10543406.2022.2105345); - meta-analysis of diagnostic tests for synthesizing sensitivities, specificities, etc. (Reitsma et al., 2005 doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2005.02.022; Chu and Cole, 2006 doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2006.06.011); - meta-analysis methods for synthesizing proportions (Lin and Chu, 2020 doi:10.1097/ede.0000000000001232); - models for multivariate meta-analysis, measures of inconsistency degrees of freedom in Bayesian network meta-analysis, and predictive P-score (Lin and Chu, 2018 doi:10.1002/jrsm.1293; Lin, 2020 doi:10.1080/10543406.2020.1852247; Rosenberger et al., 2021 doi:10.1186/s12874-021-01397-5).

Install

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

install.packages("altmeta", 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-altmeta

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-altmeta

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-altmeta

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: 3.7 min · r-release-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-26
NOTE11 OK, 2 NOTE2026-07-16
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 4.4

READMENoVignettesNoNEWSNoCitation fileNoWebsitenot declared in DESCRIPTION

Help pages: 57
Examples that run: 64%14 run in a plain check · 8 only when donttest examples are enabled (R CMD check --as-cran)
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 40%

How these are measured

Downloads

6.2K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #5,011 · ~17/day · ~516/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

52530 days

1.7K90 days

6.2K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on186 r2u27 autocran159 c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

4 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing altmeta adds 16 packages (8 with compiled code, 21 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: metafor 4.8 MB, lme4 4.3 MB, mathjaxr 3.0 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.5.0

Imports (10)

rjags codagraphicsgrDeviceslme4Matrixmetaformethodsstatsutils

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (0)

none

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

0direct

0indirect

Nothing depends on this yet.

How these are counted

Code & Tests

Datasets

People & History

People (8)

Lifeng Lin

Author, Maintainer since 1.0 (2016)

Haitao Chu

Author

Yaqi Jing

Contributor · added in 4.2

Kristine J. Rosenberger

Contributor · added in 3.3

Linyu Shi

Contributor · added in 3.1

Yipeng Wang

Contributor · added in 4.1

Xing Xing

Contributor · added in 4.3

Zhiyuan Yu

Contributor · added in 4.3

Releases (15)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

4.4Latest
record
2026-08-21 · current release · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
pb.timelag
4.3.1
record
2026-04-30 · diff ↗
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
4.3
record
2025-10-13 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
metahet.hybrid
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
4.2
record
2024-09-07 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
meta.or.smd
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
4.1
record
2022-08-29 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
meta.pen
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
4.0
record
2022-03-06 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
nma.predrank
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
3.3
record
2021-03-15 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
nma.icdf
3.2
record
2020-10-31 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
meta.biv, meta.dt
3.1
record
2020-07-24 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
pb.bayesian.binary
3.0
record
2020-04-24 · diff ↗ ·
added 5 exports
maprop.glmm, maprop.twostep, pb.hybrid.binary, pb.hybrid.generic, ssfunnel

Show 11 earlier eventsHide 11 earlier events

R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
2.3
record
2020-01-27 · diff ↗ ·
added 5 exports
metapb, mvma, mvma.bayesian, mvma.hybrid, mvma.hybrid.bayesian
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
2.2
record
2016-09-13 · diff ↗ ·
removed 1 export
metapb
R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
2.1
record
2016-04-15 · diff ↗
2.0
record
2016-03-28 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
metapb
1.0
record
2016-03-01
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16

Package metadata

First published: 2016-03-01
Total releases: 15 / 10 yrs
License: GPL (>= 2) OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 3.5.0
Bundled data: 24 KB / 33 files
Download size: 120 KB

Appears in task views

Meta-Analysis

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("altmeta")

Format

Lin, L., Chu, H., Jing, Y., Rosenberger, K. J., Shi, L., Wang, Y., Xing, X., & Yu, Z. (2026). altmeta: Alternative Meta-Analysis Methods (Version 4.4) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.altmeta

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 altmeta version 4.4 [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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