R Observatory: Metrics for backports version 1.5.1

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

backports

1.5.1Package record

Reimplementations of Functions Introduced Since R-3.0.0

43packages dependsuggested by 3

12.7Mdownloads / year

11.9%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Michel LangCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Issues ↗

Functions introduced or changed since R v3.0.0 are re-implemented in this package. The backports are conditionally exported in order to let R resolve the function name to either the implemented backport, or the respective base version, if available. Package developers can make use of new functions or arguments by selectively importing specific backports to support older installations.

Changes in 1.5.1

Removed calls to deprecated C API functions for R 4.6.0.

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

install.packages("backports", 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("r-lib/backports")

Development version from r-lib/backports. 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-backports

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-backports

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-backports

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: 2.3 min · r-devel-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 OK2026-05-04

Show 5 earlier changesHide 5 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-04-28
OK14 OK2026-04-09
WARNING9 OK, 4 NOTE, 1 WARNING2026-03-21
NOTE13 OK, 1 NOTE2026-03-17
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 1.5.1

READMEYes · 515 wordsVignettesNoNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 1.5.1Citation fileNoWebsitenot declared in DESCRIPTION

Help pages: 43 (41 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 97%36 run in a plain check · 1 never run
Exported functions with examples: 95%
Documented parameters: 3%
Return-value docs: 0%
Help pages citing references: 0%

How these are measured

Downloads

12.7M

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #58 · ~34.9K/day · ~1.1M/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

934.5K30 days

3M90 days

12.7M1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on164.6K r2u92 autocran1.4M conda_forge21.6K c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

r-lib/backports ↗Organization: r-lib

67Stars

15Forks

7Open issues

7Open PRs

9Releases

166Commits

6Commit identities

rcranbackports

166 commits · Last activity 2026-04-02 · 0% stars, 30d

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 82%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 8
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

Stars over time

2025-06-18 · 662026-07-12 · 67

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/r-lib/backports on 2026-10-21.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

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

Lint, format, editor (1)

EditorConfig

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

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

0 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing backports adds no packages beyond those that come with R.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.0.0

Imports (0)

none

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (0)

none

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

43direct

2,968indirect

Imports 43

Suggested by 3

Show all 46 packagesHide all 46 packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

Suggests, most downloaded first

summarytools did ggpackets

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (3)

Michel Lang

Maintainer since 1.0.0 (2016), Author

R Core Team

Author · added in 1.1.3

Duncan Murdoch

Author · added in 1.5.0

Releases (24)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
1.5.1Latest
record
2026-04-03 · current release · diff ↗
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
1.5.0
record
2024-05-23 · diff ↗
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
1.4.1
record
2021-12-13 · diff ↗
1.4.0
record
2021-11-23 · diff ↗
1.3.0
record
2021-10-27 · diff ↗
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
1.2.1
record
2020-12-09 · diff ↗
1.2.0
record
2020-11-02 · diff ↗
1.1.10
record
2020-09-16 · diff ↗
1.1.9
record
2020-08-24 · diff ↗
1.1.8
record
2020-06-17 · diff ↗

Show 20 earlier eventsHide 20 earlier events

1.1.7
record
2020-05-13 · diff ↗
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
1.1.6
record
2020-04-05 · diff ↗
1.1.5
record
2019-10-02 · diff ↗
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
1.1.4
record
2019-04-10 · diff ↗
1.1.3
record
2018-12-14 · diff ↗
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
1.1.2
record
2017-12-13 · diff ↗
1.1.1
record
2017-09-26 · diff ↗
1.1.0
record
2017-05-22 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
import
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21
1.0.5
record
2017-01-18 · diff ↗
1.0.4
record
2016-10-24 · diff ↗
1.0.3
record
2016-06-28 · diff ↗
R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
1.0.2
record
2016-03-18 · diff ↗
1.0.1
record
2016-03-10 · diff ↗
1.0.0
record
2016-02-20
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16

Package metadata

First published: 2016-02-20
Total releases: 24 / 10 yrs
License: GPL-2 | GPL-3 OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 3.0.0
Download size: 29 KB

Appears in task views

Package Development and Maintenance

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("backports")

Format

Lang, M., R Core Team, & Murdoch, D. (2026). backports: Reimplementations of Functions Introduced Since R-3.0.0 (Version 1.5.1) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.backports

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 backports version 1.5.1 [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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