One of the many tools that HMDC provides to support researchers is a program called rbuild.pl, which enables collaboration on development of R packages within the hosted Research Computing Environment (RCE).

Use of the rbuild program makes it possible for researchers to collaborate on R program development and to maintain that program on a web site for access by other members of a team. When performing these tasks without the use of rbuild, only one team member has access to the web directory structure in which the R program is compiled. Other team members then depend upon that individual to compile all members' changes to the program.

By collaborating on package development within the RCE, the rbuild program can be run by any member of the team to maintain that package automatically for all team members' use. The program performs a series of actions:

1. Checks the contents of a package's repository for changes.
2. Builds the latest package based on any changes and uploads the new version to team's web site.
3. Compiles new documentation for package in PDF, LaTeX2HTML, Sweave, or other formats.
4. Installs latest package within RCE.
5. Notifies listed collaborators of status through email.
6. Sends the updated package to the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) repository using FTP.

A useful feature of this tool is the email notification capabilities that support communications with team members regarding availability of new package versions or problems encountered during builds. Notifications include package name and version number for easy identification. The latest version of rbuild, released in early September, also provides a new X-RBuild-Package header in all notification emails to improve filtering capabilities.

For detailed information about the rbuild tool and how to use it, see the HMDC Support pages at the following URL:
http://support.hmdc.harvard.edu/kb-373/automating_r_package_builds_summer_2009