Minimum R version dependency in R packages - R-hub blog

[utterances-bot]

Minimum R version dependency in R packages - R-hub blog

https://blog.r-hub.io/2022/09/12/r-dependency/

[etiennebacher]

Nice post! To me, the first step to check whether my package depends on the correct version is to check the NEWS of R when I'm not sure when a function was introduced (or modified). This can be done here for R >= 4.0.0 and with news(package = "R-3") and news(package = "R-2") for R >= 3.0.0 and R >= 2.0.0 respectively.

[cderv]

when I'm not sure when a function was introduced (or modified).

Just to share that I am using this app for that https://hughjonesd.shinyapps.io/rcheology/ - Very useful !
In case it can be of interest to others...

[etiennebacher]

Yes, this one is very nice! I also wrote a small package (not on CRAN, not tested, etc.) that takes a function name and quickly prints the NEWS entries that contain it. Far from perfect but it does the job for me: https://github.com/etiennebacher/getnews

[Bisaloo]

Thanks for your comments! I usually go to backports README to determine if a function is going to require a more recent version but your options sound better! I'll give it a go next time I'm faced with this situation.

[HorridTom]

Thank you for this article, I've found it really useful. I am trying to work out what minimum versions I should specify for a package I'm developing. I've set up the check-full.yaml GitHub action as described in the article, and this is passing, but I'm still unsure what this means in terms of R versions! I can't tell which versions of R this is building against, or see where I can find the results for each version. Any help very much appreciated!

[etiennebacher]

@HorridTom I guess you're talking about HorridTom/autospc#197. The point of this workflow is that it always checks against the current R version and the 4 previous versions, so that you don't need to bump version numbers every time R is updated. If you want to check to which R version this corresponds, you can see it in the CI logs, e.g. https://github.com/HorridTom/autospc/actions/runs/18941977111/job/54082883259?pr=197#step:4:1296

[HorridTom]

@HorridTom I guess you're talking about HorridTom/autospc#197. The point of this workflow is that it always checks against the current R version and the 4 previous versions, so that you don't need to bump version numbers every time R is updated. If you want to check to which R version this corresponds, you can see it in the CI logs, e.g. https://github.com/HorridTom/autospc/actions/runs/18941977111/job/54082883259?pr=197#step:4:1296

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, that's really helpful, I see now.

[Bisaloo]

In addition to @etiennebacher's great answer, there is also the rversions package, which is part of R-hub's infrastructure, and which can translate version aliases:

rversions::resolve(version = "oldrel/3")
#>   version                date         nickname semver
#> 1   4.2.3 2023-03-15 08:06:01 Shortstop Beagle  4.2.3
#>                                                           url     type
#> 1 https://cdn.posit.co/r/ubuntu-2404/pkgs/r-4.2.3_1_amd64.deb oldrel/3

rversions::resolve(version = "release")
#>   version                date          nickname semver
#> 1   4.5.1 2025-06-13 07:12:01 Great Square Root  4.5.1
#>                                                           url    type
#> 1 https://cdn.posit.co/r/ubuntu-2404/pkgs/r-4.5.1_1_amd64.deb release

^{Created on 2025-10-30 with reprex v2.1.1}