Downgrade Packages to an Older Version — downgrade

Downgrade packages to an older version available on CRAN. This can be useful when debugging problems that might have arisen due to a package update.

Usage

downgrade_packages(pkg, dec_version = c("any", "patch", "minor", "major"))

pkg: character with the names of the packages to be downgraded.
dec_version: character giving the version to decrease. Possible values are "any", "patch", "minor", and "major". See 'Details'.

A character vector with the names of the downgraded packages, invisibly.

Using the argument dec_version, the user can control which version will be installed. The possible values are:

"any": The previous available version will be installed.
"patch": The newest available version with a smaller patch version number will be installed. For packages with three version numbers, this is the same as using "any".
"minor": The newest available version with a smaller minor version number will be installed.
"major": The newest available version with a smaller major version number will be installed.

Downgrading is only possible for packages that are currently installed. For packages that are not installed, a warning is issued.

The function uses remotes::install_version() to install a version of a package that is older than the currently installed version.