Installing Bioconductor packages
Last updated on 2024-04-02 | Edit this page
Overview
Questions
- How do I install Bioconductor packages?
- How do I check if newer versions of my installed packages are available?
- How do I update Bioconductor packages?
- How do I find out the name of packages available from the Bioconductor repositories?
Objectives
- Install BiocManager.
- Install Bioconductor packages.
BiocManager
The BiocManager package is the entry point into the Bioconductor package repository. Technically, this is the only Bioconductor package distributed on the CRAN repository.
It provides functions to safely install Bioconductor packages and check for available updates.
Once the package is installed, the function
BiocManager::install() can be used to install packages from
the Bioconductor repository. The function is also capable of installing
packages from other repositories (e.g., CRAN), if those packages are not
found in the Bioconductor repository first.
The package BiocManager is available from the CRAN repository
and used to install packages from the Bioconductor repository.
The function install.packages() from the base R package
utils can be used to install the BiocManager
package distributed on the CRAN repository. In turn, the function
BiocManager::install() can be used to install packages
available on the Bioconductor repository. Notably, the
BiocManager::install() function will fall back on the CRAN
repository if a package cannot be found in the Bioconductor
repository.
Install the package using the code below.
R
install.packages("BiocManager")
OUTPUT
trying URL 'https://cran.rstudio.com/bin/macosx/contrib/4.1/BiocManager_1.30.16.tgz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 322920 bytes (315 KB)
==================================================
downloaded 315 KB
The downloaded binary packages are in
/var/folders/51/nz__2dx10yzd75rylr5cg2zc0000gq/T//RtmpeS8MHV/downloaded_packagesGoing further
A number of packages that are not part of the base R installation also provide functions to install packages from various repositories. For instance:
devtools::install()remotes::install_bioc()remotes::install_bitbucket()remotes::install_cran()remotes::install_dev()remotes::install_github()remotes::install_gitlab()remotes::install_git()remotes::install_local()remotes::install_svn()remotes::install_url()renv::install()
Those functions are beyond the scope of this lesson, and should be
used with caution and adequate knowledge of their specific behaviors.
The general recommendation is to use BiocManager::install()
over any other installation mechanism because it ensures proper
versioning of Bioconductor packages.
Bioconductor releases and current version
Once the BiocManager
package is installed, the BiocManager::version() function
displays the version (i.e., release) of the Bioconductor project that is
currently active in the R session.
R
BiocManager::version()
OUTPUT
[1] '3.17'Using the correct version of R and Bioconductor packages is a key aspect of reproducibility. The BiocManager packages uses the version of R running in the current session to determine the version of Biocondutor packages that can be installed in the current R library.
The Bioconductor project produces two releases each year, one around April and another one around October. The April release of Bioconductor coincides with the annual release of R. The October release of Bioconductor continues to use the same version of R for that annual cycle (i.e., until the next release, in April).
Timeline of release dates for selected Bioconductor and R versions. The upper section of the timeline indicates versions and approximate release dates for the R project. The lower section of the timeline indicates versions and release dates for the Bioconductor project. Source: Bioconductor.
During each 6-month cycle of package development, Bioconductor tests packages for compatibility with the version of R that will be available for the next release cycle. Then, each time a new Bioconductor release is produced, the version of every package in the Bioconductor repository is incremented, including the package BiocVersion which determines the version of the Bioconductor project.
R
packageVersion("BiocVersion")
OUTPUT
[1] '3.17.1'This is the case for every package, even those which have not been updated at all since the previous release. That new version of each package is earmarked for the corresponding version of R; in other words, that version of the package can only be installed and accessed in an R session that uses the correct version of R. This version increment is essential to associate a each version of a Bioconductor package with a unique release of the Bioconductor project.
Following the April release, this means that users must install the new version of R to access the newly released versions of Bioconductor packages.
Instead, in October, users can continue to use the same version of R
to access the newly released version of Bioconductor packages. However,
to update an R library from the April release to the October release of
Bioconductor, users need to call the function
BiocManager::install() specifying the correct version of
Bioconductor as the version option, for instance:
R
BiocManager::install(version = "3.14")
This needs to be done only once, as the BiocVersion package will be updated to the corresponding version, indicating the version of Bioconductor in use in this R library.
Going further
The Discussion article of this lesson includes a section discussing the release cycle of the Bioconductor project.
Check for updates
The BiocManager::valid() function inspects the version
of packages currently installed in the user library, and checks whether
a new version is available for any of them on the Bioconductor
repository.
If everything is up-to-date, the function will simply print
TRUE.
R
BiocManager::valid()
WARNING
Warning: 0 packages out-of-date; 1 packages too newOUTPUT
* sessionInfo()
R version 4.3.3 (2024-02-29)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/blas/libblas.so.3.10.0
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.10.0
locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=C.UTF-8
[4] LC_COLLATE=C.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=C.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=C.UTF-8
[7] LC_PAPER=C.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C
[10] LC_TELEPHONE=C LC_MEASUREMENT=C.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
time zone: UTC
tzcode source: system (glibc)
attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
other attached packages:
[1] BiocStyle_2.28.1
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] BiocManager_1.30.22 compiler_4.3.3 fastmap_1.1.1
[4] cli_3.6.2 htmltools_0.5.8 tools_4.3.3
[7] yaml_2.3.8 rmarkdown_2.26 knitr_1.45
[10] digest_0.6.35 xfun_0.43 rlang_1.1.3
[13] renv_1.0.5 evaluate_0.23
Bioconductor version '3.17'
* 0 packages out-of-date
* 1 packages too new
create a valid installation with
BiocManager::install("SparseArray", update = TRUE, ask = FALSE, force = TRUE)
more details: BiocManager::valid()$too_new, BiocManager::valid()$out_of_dateConveniently, if any package can be updated, the function generates and displays the command needed to update those packages. Users simply need to copy-paste and run that command in their R console.
Example of out-of-date package library
In the example below, the BiocManager::valid() function
did not return TRUE. Instead, it includes information about
the active user session, and displays the exact call to
BiocManager::install() that the user should run to replace
all the outdated packages detected in the user library with the latest
version available in CRAN or Bioconductor.
> BiocManager::valid()
* sessionInfo()
R version 4.1.0 (2021-05-18)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Big Sur 11.6
Matrix products: default
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.1/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib
locale:
[1] en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/C/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8
attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices datasets utils methods base
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] BiocManager_1.30.16 compiler_4.1.0 tools_4.1.0 renv_0.14.0
Bioconductor version '3.13'
* 18 packages out-of-date
* 0 packages too new
create a valid installation with
BiocManager::install(c(
"cpp11", "data.table", "digest", "hms", "knitr", "lifecycle", "matrixStats", "mime", "pillar", "RCurl",
"readr", "remotes", "S4Vectors", "shiny", "shinyWidgets", "tidyr", "tinytex", "XML"
), update = TRUE, ask = FALSE)
more details: BiocManager::valid()$too_new, BiocManager::valid()$out_of_date
Warning message:
18 packages out-of-date; 0 packages too new Specifically, in this example, the message tells the user to run the following command to bring their installation up to date:
BiocManager::install(c(
"cpp11", "data.table", "digest", "hms", "knitr", "lifecycle", "matrixStats", "mime", "pillar", "RCurl",
"readr", "remotes", "S4Vectors", "shiny", "shinyWidgets", "tidyr", "tinytex", "XML"
), update = TRUE, ask = FALSE)Exploring the package repository
The Bioconductor biocViews, demonstrated in the earlier episode Introduction to Bioconductor, are a great way to discover new packages by thematically browsing the hierarchical classification of Bioconductor packages.
In addition, the BiocManager::available() function
returns the complete list of package names that are can be installed
from the Bioconductor and CRAN repositories. For instance the total
number of numbers that could be installed using BiocManager
R
length(BiocManager::available())
OUTPUT
[1] 24198Specifically, the current Bioconductor and CRAN repositories can be displayed as follows.
R
BiocManager::repositories()
OUTPUT
BioCsoft
"https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.17/bioc"
BioCann
"https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.17/data/annotation"
BioCexp
"https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.17/data/experiment"
BioCworkflows
"https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.17/workflows"
BioCbooks
"https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.17/books"
carpentries
"https://carpentries.r-universe.dev"
carpentries_archive
"https://carpentries.github.io/drat"
CRAN
"https://cran.rstudio.com" Each repository URL can be accessed in a web browser, displaying the full list of packages available from that repository. For instance, navigate to https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.14/bioc.
Going further
The function BiocManager::repositories() can be combined
with the base function available.packages() to query
packages available specifically from any package repository, e.g. the
Bioconductor software
package repository.
> db = available.packages(repos = BiocManager::repositories()["BioCsoft"])
> dim(db)
[1] 1948 17
> head(rownames(db))
[1] "a4" "a4Base" "a4Classif" "a4Core" "a4Preproc"
[6] "a4Reporting"Conveniently, BiocManager::available() includes a
pattern= argument, particularly useful to navigate
annotation resources (the original use case motivating it). For
instance, a range of Annotation data
packages available for the mouse model organism can be listed as
follows.
R
BiocManager::available(pattern = "*Mmusculus")
OUTPUT
[1] "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm10" "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm10.masked"
[3] "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm39" "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm8"
[5] "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm8.masked" "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm9"
[7] "BSgenome.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm9.masked" "EnsDb.Mmusculus.v75"
[9] "EnsDb.Mmusculus.v79" "PWMEnrich.Mmusculus.background"
[11] "TxDb.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm10.ensGene" "TxDb.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm10.knownGene"
[13] "TxDb.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm39.knownGene" "TxDb.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm39.refGene"
[15] "TxDb.Mmusculus.UCSC.mm9.knownGene" Installing packages
The BiocManager::install() function is used to install
or update packages.
The function takes a character vector of package names, and attempts to install them from the Bioconductor repository.
R
BiocManager::install(c("S4Vectors", "BiocGenerics"))
However, if any package cannot be found in the Bioconductor
repository, the function also searches for those packages in
repositories listed in the global option repos.
Uninstalling packages
Bioconductor packages can be removed from the R library like any
other R package, using the base R function
remove.packages(). In essence, this function simply removes
installed packages and updates index information as necessary. As a
result, it will not be possible to attach the package to a session or
browse the documentation of that package anymore.
R
remove.packages("S4Vectors")
Key Points
- The BiocManager package is available from the CRAN repository.
-
BiocManager::install()is used to install and update Bioconductor packages (but also from CRAN and GitHub). -
BiocManager::valid()is used to check for available package updates. -
BiocManager::version()reports the version of Bioconductor currently installed. -
BiocManager::install()can also be used to update an entire R library to a specific version of Bioconductor.