Install R package ctrdata

Ralf Herold

2025-07-02

Install package ctrdata on an R system

The R Project website (https://www.r-project.org/) provides installers for the R system. It can be used with software products and graphical user interfaces such as R Studio, or from Visual Studio Code.

General information on the ctrdata package is available here: https://rfhb.github.io/ctrdata/.

In R, execute:

install.packages("ctrdata")

For using the development version of package ctrdata, install from GitHub:

# install package under development
install.packages(c("remotes"))
remotes::install_github("rfhb/ctrdata", dependencies = TRUE, build_vignettes = TRUE)

Either of the above should install package ctrdata into the user’s library.

Databases to use

At this time, a PostgreSQL, DuckDB, an SQLite or a MongoDB (local or remote) database can be used with the package ctrdata. A full SQLite database is provided in the R package RSQLite. Suggested installation instructions for PostgreSQL are here and for a local MongoDB server are here; a remote MongoDB database server is accessible here. See here for a speed comparison of the databases; recommended: DuckDB, PostgreSQL or MongoDB local server.

Purpose Function call
Create SQLite database connection dbc <- nodbi::src_sqlite(dbname = "name_of_my_database", collection = "name_of_my_collection")
Create DuckDB database connection dbc <- nodbi::src_duckdb(dbname = "name_of_my_database", collection = "name_of_my_collection")
Create MongoDB database connection dbc <- nodbi::src_mongo(db = "name_of_my_database", collection = "name_of_my_collection")
Create PostgreSQL database connection dbc <- nodbi::src_postgres(dbname = "name_of_my_database"); dbc[["collection"]] <- "name_of_my_collection"
Use connection with ctrdata functions ctrdata::{ctrLoadQueryIntoDb, dbQueryHistory, dbFindIdsUniqueTrials, dbFindFields, dbGetFieldsIntoDf}(con = dbc, ...)

Attach package ctrdata

After completing the installation, attach the package from the user’s library:

library(ctrdata)

Credit to clinical trial registers

Remember to respect the registers’ terms and conditions (see ctrOpenSearchPagesInBrowser(copyright = TRUE)).

Quote or reference ctrdata

In any publication, please cite this package as follows:

Herold R (2025). “Aggregating and analysing clinical trials data from multiple public registers using R package ctrdata.” Research Synthesis Methods, 1–33. doi:10.1017/rsm.2025.10061 https://doi.org/10.1017/rsm.2025.10061. or
Herold R (2025). ctrdata: Retrieve and Analyze Clinical Trials Data from Public Registers. R package version 1.25.1, https://cran.r-project.org/package=ctrdata.