Rutilities

Rutilities, sometimes written as rutilities, is a name used for various collections of helper functions and scripts in the R programming language. There is no single, official project by this name; instead, multiple independent repositories and packages use the term to describe broad or focused sets of utility tools.

The purpose of rutilities is to simplify repetitive programming tasks, improve code readability, and extend base R with small, composable functions that can be reused across projects. These utilities often target common data analysis workflows such as data import and cleaning, file and directory management, timing and profiling, and argument validation.

Typical components found in rutilities collections include robust input/output helpers, path and file utilities, date and time helpers, string manipulation, type conversion, error handling, logging, and lightweight parallel or progress-tracking utilities. The exact contents vary by project, reflecting different author goals and use cases.

Installation and usage for a specific rutilities package typically involves installing from CRAN or GitHub, followed by loading the package and calling its functions. Because the name is used by multiple projects, documentation, examples, and API design can differ significantly between implementations. Users should consult the particular repository’s README, reference manual, and vignettes for accurate installation instructions and usage guidance.

Relation to other tools: rutilities can complement more comprehensive packages such as R.utils, stringr, lubridate, and data.table, offering small, focused helpers rather than large-scale data manipulation frameworks. Overall, rutilities serves as a catch-all label for lightweight utility contributions within the R ecosystem.

See also: R.utils, CRAN, R package ecosystem.