R Core Style Analysis

R Core Style Analysis

This vignette documents the analysis of actual R source code that informed the formatting choices in rformat. We analyzed every .R file from the 30 packages that ship with R: 15 base packages and 15 recommended packages.

Method

We downloaded the R 4.5.2 source tarball and extracted the R/ directories from all base packages. For recommended packages (boot, class, cluster, codetools, foreign, KernSmooth, lattice, MASS, Matrix, mgcv, nlme, nnet, rpart, spatial, survival) we used the CRAN source tarballs. We parsed each file with getParseData() and tallied formatting conventions across all function definitions.

An earlier version of this analysis used deparse() output from 5 packages. That approach shows reconstructed formatting, not the original source. The numbers below come from the actual source files.

Results: Base R (15 packages, excluding translations)

612 files, 172,810 lines, 8,426 function definitions.

Brace style

Style Count %
K&R (same line) 2,985 52.9
Allman (own line) 2,655 47.1
No braces (one-liner) 2,786 —

Base R is genuinely mixed. Neither style dominates.

Indentation

Style Lines %
Space-indented 116,187 89.0
Tab-indented 14,328 11.0

Most common space indents: 4 (40,412), 8 (24,324), 12 (14,257), 16 (7,054). The 4-space pattern is dominant.

Space after function

Style Count %
function( 8,076 95.8
function ( 350 4.2

The no-space form is overwhelmingly dominant. The space form appears in a few well-known functions (lm, lapply, glm) but is the exception, not the rule.

Function signatures

Style Count %
Single-line 7,553 89.6
Multi-line 873 10.4

Of the 873 multi-line signatures:

Continuation style Count
Paren-aligned 699
Tab-indented 144
Other 30

Paren alignment is the clear convention for multi-line signatures (80%).

920 files, 263,807 lines, 12,306 function definitions.

Adding the 15 recommended packages barely shifts the percentages:

Metric Base 15 All 30
K&R braces 52.9% 53.6%
Allman braces 47.1% 46.4%
function( 95.8% 96.5%
Space-indented 89.0% 89.9%
Paren-aligned cont. 80.1% 78.6%

The recommended packages follow the same conventions as base.

Control flow bodies

Style Count %
Bare (no braces) 24,839 58.7
Braced 17,505 41.3

R Core slightly prefers bare one-liner bodies. rformat leaves them bare by default (control_braces = FALSE). Use control_braces = TRUE to add braces.

} else placement

Style Count %
} else (same line) 4,576 69.7
}\nelse (new line) 1,987 30.3

Same-line } else is the majority practice. rformat enforces this by default (join_else = TRUE). Use join_else = FALSE to preserve }\nelse.

Source examples

Example from stats/lm.R — one of the minority that uses function (:

lm <- function (formula, data, subset, weights, na.action,
        method = "qr", model = TRUE, x = FALSE, y = FALSE,
        qr = TRUE, singular.ok = TRUE, contrasts = NULL,
        offset, ...)
{
    ret.x <- x
    ret.y <- y

Using cat -A to reveal tabs (^I) vs spaces:

lm <- function (formula, data, subset, weights, na.action,$
^I^Imethod = "qr", model = TRUE, x = FALSE, y = FALSE,$
^I^Iqr = TRUE, singular.ok = TRUE, contrasts = NULL,$
^I^Ioffset, ...)$
{$
    ret.x <- x$

Key findings

  1. Brace style is mixed — roughly 53/47 K&R vs Allman. Neither is “the” R Core style. Individual packages are often internally consistent, but there is no project-wide convention.
  2. function( without space is the norm (96%). The function ( form that appears in textbooks and style guides is actually rare in the source.
  3. 4-space indentation is dominant (89% space-indented, 4 being the most common width), with 11% tab-indented lines.
  4. Paren-aligned continuation is the clear choice for multi-line signatures (80%).
  5. Arguments start on the same line as function( — R Core never puts the first argument on a new line.
  6. Closing ) on same line as last argument — no dangling paren style.

External references

The R Internals manual, Chapter 9: R coding standards recommends 4-space indentation for R and C code.

The R Dev Guide PR #256 codifies this as an EditorConfig setting (4-space indent, 8-column tab display width, spaces not tabs).

The R source code uses <- exclusively for assignment — = does not appear as an assignment operator in any base or recommended package.

rformat defaults

rformat adopts the conventions where R Core is consistent and makes opinionated choices where R Core is mixed:

Convention R Core source rformat default Option to change
Assignment 100% <- <- —
Control flow braces 59% bare, 41% braced bare control_braces = TRUE
} else placement 70% same line same line join_else = FALSE
Brace style ~53% K&R, ~47% Allman K&R brace_style = "allman"
function spacing 96% no space no space function_space = TRUE
Indentation 89% spaces, 11% tabs 4 spaces indent = "\t"
Continuation 80% paren-aligned paren-aligned wrap = "fixed"

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