add citation information in R package

Question

I am building my R package using Roxygen2 and devtools, and I would like to add some citation information in my R codes (i.e. I hope to write in a .R file from which the citations can be auto-generated). The ultimate goal is to display, once I run the command citation(MyPkgName), the citations of the R package as well as the citation (preferrably with BibTeX entry) of the paper I submit. Is there a way to do that using devtools? Thanks!

Answer 1

The CITATION file should be in the inst directory. See the official documentation for details of what should be in the file.

Answer 2

CITATION template can be created automatically with

usethis::use_citation()

Once the file is created, you only need to fill in the gaps.

Answer 3

Another way to include citation in your package is during attach time (e.g. when using library()).

You can do so using the function .onAttach() (it could go in a zzz.R file, as suggested in Hadley's R Packages book).

One example, would be:

.onAttach<-function(libname, pkgname){
      packageStartupMessage('Please cite this paper!') 
}

But you can easily search for other examples in the net, as this one including a call to citation().