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| title = Creating R Packages, Using CRAN, R-Forge, And Local R Archive Networks And Subversion (SVN) Repositories
| url =http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Graves+DoraiRaj-RPackageDevelopment.pdf| }}
</ref> checks for errors of various types. Examples included in the documentation files are tested and produce error messages if they fail. This can be used as a primitive form of [[unit testing]]; more formal unit tests and [[regression testing]] can be included in a "tests" subdirectory. This can improve software development productivity by making it easier to find bugs as the code is being developed. In addition, the documentation makes it easier to share code with others. It also makes it easier for a developer to use code written months or even years earlier. Packages contributed to the R software repository CRAN (the Comprehensive R Archive Network) <ref> {{ cite web
| title=The Comprehensive R Archive Network | url =http://cran.r-project.org}} </ref> and under development in the Subversion repository R-Forge <ref> {{ cite web | title = R-Forge | url=http://r-forge.r-project.org}} </ref> are repeatedly compiled on different platforms under different versions of the core R language. The results are made available to package maintainers. In this way, package contributors become aware of problems they might otherwise never encounter themselves, because they otherwise would not have easy access to those alternative test results. An interesting research question would be to compare the quality of contributions to different [software repository|software repositories] and try to relate that to features of the package development process, i.e., the degree of formality and enforcement of standards for documentation, code, and testing and to the rate of growth of usage of contributed software.
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