Static Code Analysis for R
Jim Hester, Florent E. Angly, Michael Chirico, Russ Hyde, Kun Ren, Indrajeet Patil, Alexander Rosenstock · The Journal of Open Source Software · 2025
In computer programming, "linting" is the process of analyzing the source code to identify possible programming and stylistic problems (Wikipedia contributors, 2024a) and a linter is a tool used for linting.A linter analyzes code to identify potential errors, stylistic issues, or deviations from coding standards.It helps ensure consistency, readability, and best practices by flagging common mistakes, such as syntax errors, unused variables, or improper formatting.Linters are essential for improving code quality, preventing bugs, and maintaining a clean codebase, especially in collaborative development environments (Wikipedia contributors, 2024b).{lintr} is an open-source package that provides linters for the R programming language, which is an interpreted, dynamically-typed programming language (R Core Team, 2023), and is used by a wide range of researchers and data scientists.{lintr} can thus act as a valuable tool for R users to help improve the quality and reliability of their code.