R Observatory: Metrics for rextendr version 0.5.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

rextendr

0.5.0Package record

Build 'Rust' Powered 'R' Packages

1packages dependsuggested by 3

12.2Kdownloads / year

52.4%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Kenneth VernonCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗

Provides a framework for creating high-performance 'R' packages powered by the 'Rust' programming language using the 'extendr' Rust crate. It offers 'usethis'-like functions to scaffold and develop 'Rust' powered 'R' packages, including utilities for publishing to CRAN, managing dependencies, configuring development environments, and rendering 'Rust' code in 'knitr' documents. Additionally, it provides functions to compile and evaluate 'Rust' code directly from 'R' for interactive development.

Changes in 0.5.0

Added

use_extendr() now generates cleanup and cleanup.win. (#473)
Refactor of rust_source() and rust_function() (#478)
Adds opts = extendr_options() to simplify rust_source() API with ... to maintain backwards compatibility
Adds rlang standalone type checks to rust_source() and rust_function()
Replaces internal invoke_cargo() with run_cargo() in rust_source()
Simplifies handling of macro options in rust_function(extendr_fn_options = list())
Unknown macro options in dev and release now throw errors instead of warnings
vendor_pkgs() now has a clean argument to remove the src/rust/vendor directory after creating the vendor.tar.xz file. (#479)
Added update_scaffold() to overwrite scaffolding, making it easier to update packages to track developments in extendr and rextendr. (#493)

Show all changes in 0.5.0Hide the rest of the changes in 0.5.0

write_license_note() is now marked as experimental. The authors field in Cargo metadata is deprecated upstream (<https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/16458>) and crates may stop populating it, leading to incomplete author information.

Deprecated

vendor_pkgs() has been renamed to vendor_crates() to better reflect that it vendors Rust crates. vendor_pkgs() is soft-deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
Complete overhaul of wrapper-generation. (#491)
rextendr::document() is now a thin wrapper around devtools::document() and is soft deprecated. Packages created with use_extendr() no longer require it. It is retained for backwards compatibility.
register_extendr() is no longer called in rextendr::document() and is soft deprecated. The function itself is no-op and now returns a lifecycle warning.
Deprecating register_extendr() effectively nullifies the PkgGen CI tests, so those have been removed.

Breaking

Complete overhaul of wrapper-generation. (#491)
use_extendr() now generates src/rust/document.rs and adds a [[bin]] target to Cargo.toml with crate-type = ["rlib", "staticlib"].
rust_eval() now returns extendr_api::error::Result<Robj>.
The header in R/extendr-wrappers.R has also been updated to reflect these changes, which required a concurrent PR to extendr (extendr/extendr#1048).
CI now uses the development version of extendr-api on GitHub.
Snapshot and other tests now reflect these changes.
Substantial updates to Roxygen documentation.

Fixed

Makevars(.win) now uses the vendor/, if it exists, before unzipping the tarball. (#479)
entrypoint.c now registers extendr's panic handler. (#499)

Changed

callr has been removed as a dependency.

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

install.packages("rextendr", 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("extendr/rextendr")

Development version from extendr/rextendr. 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-rextendr

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-rextendr

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-rextendr

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: 2.2 min · r-oldrel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

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

Show 1 earlier changeHide 1 earlier change

OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 0.5.0

READMEYes · 264 wordsVignettesYes · 2 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 0.5.0Citation fileNoWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 22 (4 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 18%2 run in a plain check (1 of them under a condition) · 9 never run
Exported functions with examples: 56%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 94%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (2)

How these are measured

Downloads

12.2K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #3,583 · ~34/day · ~1K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

1.2K30 days

2.9K90 days

12.2K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on132 r2u4 autocran391 conda_forge

How downloads are counted

Repository

extendr/rextendr ↗Organization: extendr

264Stars

35Forks

28Open issues

1Open PRs

8Releases

315Commits

16Commit identities

315 commits · Last activity 2026-10-22 · +0.4% stars, 30d · Discussions: 5 posts

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 87%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 164
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 1

Stars over time

2025-10-13 · 2322026-10-15 · 264

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

12 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 5 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/extendr/rextendr on 2026-10-18.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

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

Governance and community (2)

Code of conductContributing guide

Docs source (4)

README.Rmdpkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-09-25 · The repository has a site deploy workflow

CRAN release process (1)

cran-comments.md

Show all practicesHide 1 practice

Lint, format, editor (3)

Lint workflowjarlRStudio project

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v3 (2026-09-26)

AI coding toolsBeta

This repository shows signs of AI coding tools.

Claude Codefirst seen on or before 2026-05-18
Pull request it wrote: opened by a project member
Commits: at least 3 crediting it in the message

From outside contributors

Claude Code
Pull requests: 2 from outside contributors, first on 2026-05-01, 2 from forks

Models named in its commits

Claude Opus 4.72 commits · May 2026
Claude Opus 4.81 commit · Jun 2026

Counts are commits, not lines of code. Commits by a tool's accounts count once across all of its accounts. Commits crediting it are the largest count among its credit lines, a minimum.How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (updated 2026-09-27)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

21 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing rextendr adds 25 packages (14 with compiled code, 18 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: stringi 11 MB, jsonlite 1.0 MB, vctrs 1.0 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 4.2

Imports (14)

brio cli desc dplyr glue jsonlite lifecycle pkgbuild processx rlang rprojroot stringi vctrs withr

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (7)

devtools knitr lintr rcmdcheck rmarkdown testthat (>= 3.1.7)usethis

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

1direct

0indirect

Imports 1

Suggested by 3

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

tarpolyglot

Suggests, most downloaded first

SQLFormatteR libipldr tergo

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (8)

Kenneth Vernon

Author, Maintainer since 0.5.0 (2026) · added in 0.4.0

Malcolm Barrett

Author

Ilia Kosenkov

Author

Josiah Parry

Author · added in 0.3.0

Author

Author

Author

Contributor · added in 0.4.0

Previously maintained by Ilia Kosenkov (0.3.0 to 0.4.2) and Claus O. Wilke (0.2.0).

Listed in earlier versions (1)

Hiroaki Yutani

no longer listed · 0.2.0 to 0.3.1

Releases (7)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
0.5.0Latest
record
2026-04-18 · current release · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
extendr_options, update_scaffold, vendor_crates
0.4.2
record
2025-08-26 · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
use_extendr_badge, use_positron, use_vscode
unarchivedReturned to CRAN
2025-06-19
0.4.1
record
2025-06-19 · diff ↗
archivedRemoved from CRAN
2025-05-16
issues were not corrected in time
0.4.0
record
2025-05-02 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
read_cargo_metadata, use_crate, use_msrv, vendor_pkgs
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
0.3.1
record
2023-06-20 · diff ↗
0.3.0
record
2023-05-30 · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
clean, rust_sitrep, write_license_note
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
0.2.0
record
2021-06-15
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18

Package metadata

First published: 2021-06-15
Total releases: 7 / 5 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.2
Download size: 344 KB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("rextendr")

Format

Vernon, K., Barrett, M., Kosenkov, I., Miranda, A., Parry, J., Reimert, M. M., Thomason, A., & Wilke, C. O. (2026). rextendr: Build 'Rust' Powered 'R' Packages (Version 0.5.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.rextendr

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 rextendr version 0.5.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-22. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-22, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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