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There are many elements within the reproducible package. However, there are currently two main ones that are critical for reproducible research. The key element for reproducible research is that the code must always return the same content every time it is run, but it must be vastly faster the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc, time it is run. That way, the entire code sequence for a project of arbitrary size can be run from the start every time.
Cache():A robust wrapper for any function, including those with environments, disk-backed storage (currently on
Raster) class), operating-system independent, whose first time called will execute the function, second time will compare the inputs to a database of entries, and recover the first result if inputs are identical. Ifoptions("reproducible.useMemoise" = TRUE), the second time will be very fast as it will recover the answer from RAM.prepInputs()for other specifics for other classes.:Download, or load objects, and possibly post-process them. The main advantage to using this over more direct routes is that it will automatically build checksums tables, use
Cacheinternally where helpful, and possibly run a variety of post-processing actions. This means this function can also itself be cached for even more speed. This allows all project data to be stored in custom cloud locations or in their original online data repositories,without altering codebetween the first, second, third, etc., times the code is run.