====== R style guide ======

R code that is submitted to be included in any of the R tools developed at BSC should follow these style guidelines, based on the tidyverse style guide:

  * Use `<-` for variable assignment
  * Include spaces between operators (e.g. `+`, `-`, `&`), before `{`, and after `for`, `if`, `while`, `,` and `)`.
  * When possible, maximum line length should be 100 characters (soft limit of 80 characters).
  * Number of indentation spaces is 2, using tabs for indentation is forbidden.
  * Double quotes are recommended for strings. When writing quotes within quoted text, use double quotes outside and single quotes inside. E.g.: `"Parameter 'na.rm' is missing."`
  * Self-explanatory names are preferred for variables. Try to be consistent with the variable naming style. Generally: avoid special characters (except underscores) and reserved words (ex: if, for, else, ...)
  * Remember to include short comments to make the code easier to understand. Comments should be in their own line and they should start with `#` followed by a space. Comments that start with `##` and a space are for details not needed to understand the general procedure but useful to make note of more technical aspects of the code.


====== Examples ======

  # Proper spacing, indentation spaces and text quotes:
  NewFunction <- function(text = "default", uppercase = TRUE) {
    # Check uppercase parameter
    if (!is.logical(uppercase)) {
      stop("Parameter 'uppercase' should be TRUE or FALSE.")
    }
    # Only transform text if needed
    if (uppercase && is.character(text)) {
    text <- toupper(text)
    }
    return(text)
  }

  # How to format line breaks to avoid long lines:
  my_strings <- list(one = "un",
                     two = "dos",
                     three = "tres",
                     four = "quatre")
  # or:
  my_strings <- list(
    one = "un",
    two = "dos",
    three = "tres",
    four = "quatre"
  )

====== Other resources ======

For more tips on writing clean and easy to read code, check the [[https://style.tidyverse.org/index.html|tidyverse style guide]]. You can use the [[https://cloud.r-project.org/web/packages/styler/index.html|styler]] R package to automatically style your code, and it can even be integrated in RStudio!