R: Create New CRAN Fathead

[pjhampton]

Create a new CRAN (R Package Manager) Fathead Instant Answer

Help us make DuckDuckGo the best search engine for programmers!

What do I need to know?

You'll need to know how to code in Perl, Python, Ruby, or JavaScript.

What am I doing?

You will write a script that scrapes or downloads the data source below, and generates an output.txt file containing the parsed documentation. You can learn more about Fatheads and the output.txt syntax here.

Data source: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/available_packages_by_name.html

Instant Answer Page: https://duck.co/ia/view/cran

What is the Goal?

As part of our Programming Mission, we're aiming to reach 100% Instant Answer (IA) coverage for searches related to programming languages by creating new Instant Answers, and improving existing ones.

Here are some Fathead examples:

• Ruby Docs

  • Code | Example Query

• MDN CSS

  • Code | Example Query

  

See more related Instant Answers

Get Started

• 1) Claim this issue by commenting below
• 2) Review our Contributing Guide
• 3) Set up your development environment, and fork this repository
• 4) Create a new Instant Answer Page: https://duck.co/ia/new_ia (then let us know, here!)
• 5) Create the Fathead
• 6) Create a Pull Request
• 7) Ping @raj-maurya for a review

Resources

• Join DuckDuckHack Slack to ask questions
• Join the DuckDuckHack Forum to discuss project planning and Instant Answer metrics
• Read the DuckDuckHack Documentation for technical help

[pjhampton]

Anybody interested in this? @duckduckgo/duckduckhack-contributors 🚀
This could make a good first Fathead

[gautamkrishnar]

Looking great @pjhampton I would like to work on this. I will populate the output.txt with python.

• What template should i use, for the fronted?
• What infos should i have to display?

[laurenancona]

I actually had a local stub repo for this that I was trying to work on last year. I haven't checked back in a while but at the time there was something weird about the way CRAN's master package list was formatted (e.g. I'd thought I would need to write a new scraper).

I'd like to dig back in since this has been on my personal wish list, so I'll take a shot at it @pjhampton

[gautamkrishnar]

@laurenancona you can take this if you want 👍. Shall i assign you on this?

[pjhampton]

Yes, please @gautamkrishnar! And thanks so much @laurenancona!

[laurenancona]

@pjhampton @gautamkrishnar

Created the IA page:
https://duck.co/ia/view/r_packages

Originally tried to name it CRAN but there is a dead Spice by that name that depends on METACRAN's (unofficial) API.

What generally happens to IA names when deprecated (or never merged, etc)? No strong preference here - just whatever you think is most relevant, given the topic and IA type.

[gautamkrishnar]

@laurenancona Yes IA pages would become something just like ghosts when the PR Is abandoned😄. Its not possible to anyone to delete it other than DDG employees.
Yes r_packages is a good name for this IA 👍.
Please don't forget to update the example queries when the IA is complete.

[moollaza]

What generally happens to IA names when deprecated (or never merged, etc)? No strong preference here - just whatever you think is most relevant, given the topic and IA type.

@laurenancona @gautamkrishnar I can "ghost" IA pages, which relinquishes their ID. I'll ghost the cran page so you can use it here, or elsewhere as it's a good name ;)

[moollaza]

@laurenancona I've updated the ID for your r_packages IA Page. It's now cran:

https://duck.co/ia/view/cran

[pjhampton]

Hey @laurenancona!

Just in case you are interested or in need of some inspiration, I have done something similar with another package manager (OPAM) here: #775

[laurenancona]

Thanks, @pjhampton, I'll take a look!

I started a new job last month and needed to pause work briefly, but have made progress on the scraper with @ctufts.

[pjhampton]

That's awesome! Congrats on the new job 😄

[pjhampton]

Hey @laurenancona,

We've moved on from the programming mission. I'm not sure if you're still working on this currently? If you are we can reopen :)