Different number of CRAN packages with `available.packages()`?

[Etienne Bacher]

Hi, I saw your recent announcements on Mastodon about the number of CRAN packages supported (~22k) and I was surprised because I thought the number of CRAN packages was around 20k. This is also what available.packages() returns:

nrow(available.packages())
#> [1] 19946

I'm simply curious, where does the difference come from?

Many thanks for r2u!

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

I do not purge. I think that is documented, if not as you are having fresh eyes on the documentation maybe you can suggested a place to add that.

Thanks for your interest in r2u, and your keen reading of the documentation!

PS The count comes from a file listing in my build directory but you can run it too, as always easiest via docker (if slow via the apt-cache route):

$ docker run --rm -ti rocker/r2u 
root@f542532694b5:/# apt update -qqq
root@f542532694b5:/# apt-cache search "^r-cran-" | wc -l
22154
root@f542532694b5:/# 

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

Maybe I'll just add it to the FAQ vignette...

[Etienne Bacher]

maybe you can suggested a place to add that.

You could put that after "This currently resuls in 22214 and 22120 binary packages from CRAN in "focal" and "jammy", respectively, and 391 and 391 BioConductor packages, respectively, from the 3.18 release." in the README

(btw, typo: "resuls" -> "results")

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

I just went over the FAQ vignette and added a paragraph there that'll go live in a bit. (And the FAQ needed an update to another question too so all good) so maybe I just forward-reference this.

Thanks also for finding the typo. And thanks for, IIRC, also mentioning how r2u + r-universe-binaries-for-jammy are dynamite together! Only sane way to get rpolars 😀 (as a 'mere casual user').

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

And done in 7370cdf

[Etienne Bacher]

Great! As always thanks for the super fast answer