R Observatory: Metrics for downloader version 0.4.1

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

downloader

0.4.1Package record

Download Files over HTTP and HTTPS

14packages dependsuggested by 3

301Kdownloads / year

50.9%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Winston ChangCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Issues ↗

Provides a wrapper for the download.file function, making it possible to download files over HTTPS on Windows, Mac OS X, and other Unix-like platforms. The 'RCurl' package provides this functionality (and much more) but can be difficult to install because it must be compiled with external dependencies. This package has no external dependencies, so it is much easier to install.

Install

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

install.packages("downloader", 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("wch/downloader")

Development version from wch/downloader. 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-downloader

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-downloader

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-downloader

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: 48 s · r-devel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

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 0.4.1

READMEYes · 77 wordsVignettesNoNEWSYes · 100% structuredCitation fileNoWebsitenot declared in DESCRIPTION

Help pages: 4includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 0%3 never run
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 0%
Help pages citing references: 0%

How these are measured

Downloads

301K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #785 · ~825/day · ~25.1K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

17.6K30 days

60.3K90 days

301K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on3.2K r2u133 autocran68.8K conda_forge71 bioconda142 c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

wch/downloader ↗Account: wch

35Stars

8Forks

3Open issues

0Open PRs

0Releases

63Commits

3Commit identities

63 commits · Last activity 2025-03-26

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 67%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 1
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

1 development-tooling and community-health practice detected across 1 family in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/wch/downloader on 2026-10-21.

Lint, format, editor (1)

RStudio project

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

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

2 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing downloader adds 1 package (1 with compiled code, 231 KB of source tarballs). Heaviest: digest 231 KB.

Depends (0)

none

Imports (2)

utilsdigest

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (1)

testthat

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

14direct

35indirect

Imports 14

Suggested by 3

Show all 17 packagesHide all 17 packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

imager biomartr neonUtilities mdsr etl DEET fishualize rfars rtrek scMappR imgpalr stationaRy sketcher materialmodifier

Suggests, most downloaded first

quantmod drake AplosNCA

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (1)

Winston Chang

Author, Maintainer since 0.1 (2012)

Releases (7)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
0.4.1Latest
record
2025-03-26 · current release · 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
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
R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
0.4
record
2015-07-09 · diff ↗
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16
R
R 3.1.0 released · 2014-04-10
0.3
record
2013-05-01 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
sha_url

Show 6 earlier eventsHide 6 earlier events

R
R 3.0.0 released · 2013-04-03
0.2.2
record
2013-02-11 · diff ↗
0.2.1
record
2013-02-05 · diff ↗
0.2
record
2013-02-04 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
source_url
0.1
record
2012-11-01
R
R 2.15.0 released · 2012-03-30

Package metadata

First published: 2012-11-01
Total releases: 7 / 14 yrs
License: GPL-2 OSI
Download size: 6.8 KB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("downloader")

Format

Chang, W. (2025). downloader: Download Files over HTTP and HTTPS (Version 0.4.1) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.downloader

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 downloader version 0.4.1 [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.

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