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⇱ R Documentation Scraper · Apify

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R Documentation Scraper

Scrape R package metadata from CRAN via the public crandb API. Search packages by keyword or fetch specific packages by name - returns version, title, description, author, maintainer, license, dependencies, and rdocumentation.org links.

Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 results

Rating

5.0

(11)

Developer

👁 Crawler Gang

Crawler Gang

Maintained by Community

Actor stats

11

Bookmarked

2

Total users

1

Monthly active users

3 days ago

Last modified

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Scrape R package metadata from RDocumentation.org / CRAN using the public crandb API. No authentication or proxies required.

What it does

  • Search packages by keyword — finds all CRAN packages matching your query
  • Fetch specific packages by exact CRAN package name
  • Returns rich metadata: version, title, description, author, maintainer, license, dependencies, imports, and canonical RDocumentation links

Input

FieldTypeDescriptionDefault
modestringsearchPackages or getByNamesearchPackages
searchQuerystringKeyword to search (mode=searchPackages)ggplot
packageNamesstring[]Exact package names (mode=getByName)[]
maxItemsintegerMax records to return (1–500)50

Example: search packages

{
"mode":"searchPackages",
"searchQuery":"ggplot",
"maxItems":20
}

Example: get by name

{
"mode":"getByName",
"packageNames":["ggplot2","dplyr","tidyr","data.table"],
"maxItems":10
}

Output

Each record contains:

FieldTypeDescription
packageNamestringCRAN package name
versionstringLatest version
titlestringShort one-line title
descriptionstringFull description
authorstringPackage authors
maintainerstringCurrent maintainer with email
licensestringLicense string (e.g. MIT, GPL-2)
typestringRepository type (CRAN, Bioconductor)
dependsstring[]Packages listed in Depends (R excluded)
importsstring[]Packages listed in Imports
repositoryUrlstringFirst URL from URL field
bugReportsUrlstringBug tracker URL
sourceUrlstringhttps://www.rdocumentation.org/packages/{name}
publishedAtstringPublication date if available
recordTypestringAlways "package"
scrapedAtstringISO 8601 timestamp of scrape

Sample output record

{
"packageName":"ggplot2",
"version":"4.0.3",
"title":"Create Elegant Data Visualisations Using the Grammar of Graphics",
"description":"A system for 'declaratively' creating graphics, based on The Grammar of Graphics...",
"author":"Hadley Wickham [aut], Winston Chang [aut], Thomas Lin Pedersen [aut, cre]...",
"maintainer":"Thomas Lin Pedersen <thomas.pedersen@posit.co>",
"license":"MIT + file LICENSE",
"type":"CRAN",
"imports":["cli","grDevices","grid","gtable","isoband","lifecycle","rlang","scales"],
"repositoryUrl":"https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org",
"bugReportsUrl":"https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues",
"sourceUrl":"https://www.rdocumentation.org/packages/ggplot2",
"recordType":"package",
"scrapedAt":"2026-05-30T10:00:00+00:00"
}

FAQs

Q: Does this require an API key or proxy? No. The scraper uses the public crandb.r-pkg.org API, which is free and open.

Q: Does this return ALL versions of a package? No. It returns metadata for the latest published version only.

Q: How does search work? The scraper performs a prefix-range query on the crandb API, returning all packages whose names start with your search term. It also falls back to a substring match across all CRAN package names.

Q: How many packages are on CRAN? As of 2026, CRAN hosts over 20,000 packages.

Q: Can I fetch Bioconductor packages? Currently the scraper covers CRAN only (via crandb). Bioconductor packages may not appear.

Q: What is the rate limit? The crandb API is generous for public usage. The scraper adds small delays between requests to be polite.

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