README.md

codemetar

The goal of codemetar is to generate the JSON-LD file, codemeta.json containing software metadata describing an R package

Installation

You can install codemetar from github with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("codemeta/codemetar")

library("codemetar")

Example

This is a basic example which shows you how to generate a codemeta.json for an R package (e.g. for testthat):

write_codemeta("testthat")

codemetar can take the path to the package root instead. This may allow codemetar to glean some additional information that is not available from the description file alone.

write_codemeta(".")

{
  "@context": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/codemeta/codemeta/master/codemeta.jsonld",
  "@type": "SoftwareSourceCode",
  "identifier": "codemetar",
  "title": "Generate CodeMeta Metadata for R Packages",
  "description": "Codemeta defines a 'JSON-LD' format for describing software metadata.\n    This package provides utilities to generate, parse, and modify codemeta.jsonld\n    files automatically for R packages.",
  "name": "codemetar",
  "codeRepository": "https://github.com/codemeta/codemetar",
  "issueTracker": "https://github.com/codemeta/codemetar/issues",
  "licenseId": "MIT + file LICENSE",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "programmingLanguage": {
    "@type": "ComputerLanguage",
    "name": "R",
    "version": "3.4.0",
    "url": "https://r-project.org"
  },
  "runtimePlatform": "R version 3.4.0 (2017-04-21)",
  "author": [
    {
      "@type": "Person",
      "givenName": "Carl",
      "familyName": "Boettiger",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1642-628X"
    }
  ],
  "copyrightHolder": [
    {
      "@type": "Person",
      "givenName": "Carl",
      "familyName": "Boettiger",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1642-628X"
    }
  ],
  "maintainer": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "givenName": "Carl",
    "familyName": "Boettiger",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "@id": "http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1642-628X"
  },
  "suggests": [
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "testthat",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "jsonvalidate",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "jsonld",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "covr",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "knitr",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "rmarkdown",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    }
  ],
  "depends": [
    {
      "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
      "name": "jsonlite",
      "version": "1.3",
      "provider": {
        "@id": "https://cran.r-project.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Central R Archive Network (CRAN)",
        "url": "https://cran.r-project.org"
      }
    }
  ],
  "contIntegration": "https://travis-ci.org/codemeta/codemetar",
  "developmentStatus": "Project Status: WIP - Initial development is in progress, but there has not yet been a stable, usable release suitable for the public"
}

Enriching CodeMeta metadata

The best way to ensure codemeta.json is as complete as possible is to begin by making full use of the fields that can be set in an R package DESCRIPTION file, such as BugReports and URL. Using the Authors@R notation allows a much richer specification of author roles, correct parsing of given vs family names, and email addresses.

In the current implementation, developers may specify an ORCID url for an author in the optional comment field of Authors@R, e.g.

Authors@R: person("Carl", "Boettiger", role=c("aut", "cre", "cph"), email="[email protected]", comment="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1642-628X")

which will allow codemetar to associate an identifier with the person. This is clearly something of a hack since R's person object lacks an explicit notion of id, and may be frowned upon.

Additional metadata can be added by creating and manipulating a codemeta list in R:

cm <- create_codemeta(".")
cm$keywords <- list("metadata", "ropensci")
write_codemeta(cm = cm)