Refactor current 'utility' scripts as R package

[jeff1evesque]

We need to refactor our current utility scripts, as a local R package.

Note: more information can be further reviewed regarding the decision to create localized R packages.

[jeff1evesque]

The motivation to implement a package design, was because our R scripts was not able to source the corresponding scripts, since the current working directory (i.e. C:\Users\jeff1evesque\web-projects\ist-687\R\) is different from where the current script is working:

> getwd()
[1] "C:/Users/jeff1evesque/Documents"

Also, though it was possible to define an absolute path, for the current working directory. But, this would have been a bit strange, if the codebase was cloned from another system (say osx, or linux), which would mean a relative path of the form c:\ would not make sense. Instead, we needed to restructure the current scripts into the package file structure, which should allow us to load the package via library().

Specifically, we decided to refactor our current scripts to the following package structure:

├─ utility/
├───  DESCRIPTION
├───  NAMESPACE
├───  R/
├─────  dataframe.R
├─────  download.R
├─────  package.R

Note: a simple example of an R package can verify the above structure suggestion.

[jeff1evesque]

The following source was used a guideline, when creating the corresponding package:

• http://tinyheero.github.io/jekyll/update/2015/07/26/making-your-first-R-package.html