Advance deprecations

[jennybc]

This issue tracks deprecations that could be advanced in a future readr release.

Is it time to soft deprecate the first edition? In readr 2.0.0, we said:

We will continue to support the first edition for a number of releases, but eventually this support will be first deprecated and then removed.

---

Deprecated in readr 2.0.0 (2021-07-20)

✅ Melt functions

• Removed in Remove all the melt functions #1598
• Functions affected:
  • melt_csv(), melt_csv2(), melt_delim(), melt_tsv() (were in R/melt_delim.R)
  • melt_fwf() (was in R/melt_fwf.R)
  • melt_table(), melt_table2() (were in R/melt_table.R)
  • melt_csv_chunked(), melt_csv2_chunked(), melt_delim_chunked(), melt_tsv_chunked() (were in R/melt_delim_chunked.R)
• Replacement: Use the meltr package (https://cran.r-project.org/package=meltr)

✅ read_table2() function

• Removed in Remove read_table2() #1605
• Before removal it was deprecate_soft("2.0.0", ...) then just called `read_table() anyway

✅ quote_escape Parameter

• Removed in Remove quote_escape argument #1602
• Functions affected:
  • write_delim()
  • write_csv()
  • write_csv2()
  • write_excel_csv()
  • write_excel_csv2()
  • write_tsv()
• Behaviour before removal: lifecycle::deprecate_soft("2.0.0", ...) then assigning value to the escape parameter

✅ quoted_na Parameter

• Hard deprecated in some settings in Advance deprecation of quoted_na argument #1604. Sort of a complicated situation.
• quoted_na appears in the signature of some core functions:
  • read_delim()
  • read_csv()
  • read_csv2()
  • read_tsv()
    Use of quoted_na now errors unless user is explicitly using the 1st edition. It has been deprecate_soft() since readr 2.0.0 and was just ignored.
• quoted_na is used in some functions that live entirely in readr and are arguably legacy:
  • read_*_chunked()
  • tokenizer_*()
    The documentation has been updated here to better reflect the situation (?).

✅ skip_empty_rows parameter in fwf_empty()

• Deprecation advanced in 9713f73
• Use of fwf_empty(skip_empty_rows =) now errors unless user is explicitly using the 1st edition. It has been deprecate_soft() since readr 2.0.0 and was just ignored.
• skip_empty_rows arguments appear elsewhere (i.e. not just fwf_empty()) and are still used by first edition, so it's complicated.

---

Deprecated in readr 1.4.0 (2020-01-31)

✅ path Parameter

• Removed in Remove the long deprecated path argument #1601
• Deprecated in favor of: file parameter
• Behavior before removal: lifecycle::deprecate_warn("1.4.0", ...) then assigning value to file parameter
• Functions affected: 9 write functions:
  • write_delim()
  • write_csv()
  • write_csv2()
  • write_excel_csv()
  • write_excel_csv2()
  • write_tsv()
  • write_lines()
  • write_file()
  • write_rds()

[jennybc]

Unless I state otherwise, all of these emails, issues, and PRs were initiated on/before 2025-11-20.

Revdep failures

We checked 898 reverse dependencies (896 from CRAN + 2 from Bioconductor), comparing R CMD check results across CRAN and dev versions of this package.

read_table2() no longer exists

• admixr readr's next release won't have read_table2() bodkan/admixr#94 already fixed on GitHub in 2024, so opened issue encouraging a CRAN release
• chronochrt No GitHub thomas.rose@daad-alumni.de email sent to maintainer
• eyelinker Just use read_table() a-hurst/eyelinker#5 email sent to maintainer
• readit https://github.com/ryapric/readit GitHub repo says it's retired and no GitHub activity since 2020 and no CRAN release since 2018, so doing nothing here
• rubias No GitHub eric.anderson@noaa.gov email sent to maintainer ... email bounced, tried harder to find GitHub source, opened issue read_table2() will be removed in the next release of readr eriqande/rubias#37
• skater Just call read_table() signaturescience/skater#59 email sent to maintainer
• tidypopgen readr::read_table2() will be removed in a future version of readr EvolEcolGroup/tidypopgen#153 indirect usage via a non-CRAN package; just opening issue
• tidytreatment Just call readr::read_table() bonStats/tidytreatment#15 email sent to maintainer
• xpose Omit special handling for readr <2.0.0 UUPharmacometrics/xpose#237 email sent to maintainer

path argument is removed

• arkdb Use readr::write_*(file =) instead of path ropensci/arkdb#59 email sent to maintainer
• genogeographer No GitHub tvede@math.aau.dk email sent to maintainer
• nlrx Use readr::write_csv(file =) instead of path ropensci/nlrx#107 email sent to maintainer
• suddengains Use readr::write_csv(file =) instead of path milanwiedemann/suddengains#39 email sent to maintainer

quote_escape argument is removed

• params It's escape = now, not quote_escape = sahilseth/params#16 email sent to maintainer

quoted_na argument requires 1st edition

• MIMSunit Stop using the quoted_na argument of readr::read_csv() mHealthGroup/MIMSunit#41 email sent to maintainer

Other

• pdxTrees No longer on CRAN: "Archived on 2025-11-19 as email to the maintainer is undeliverable."
• rbmiUtils No longer on CRAN: "Archived on 2025-11-19 as requires archived package 'rbmi'."
• stoRy I see no issues with its usage of readr. Currently failing on CRAN for 2 reasons:
  • ERROR Package required but not available: ‘tidyjson’
  • ERROR Installation failed
    I see "issues need fixing before 2025-11-27". I don't think this is a readr matter.

Failed to check (4)

package	version	error	warning	note
eyelinker	0.2.1	+1
pdxTrees	?
rbmiUtils	?
stoRy	0.2.2	1

New problems (14)

package	version	error	warning	note
admixr	0.9.1		+1
arkdb	0.0.18	+1
chronochrt	0.1.3		+1
genogeographer	0.1.19		+1	+1
MIMSunit	0.11.2	+1
nlrx	0.4.5	+1
params	0.7.7			+1
readit	1.0.0	+2		+1
rubias	0.3.4		+1
skater	0.1.2	+1	+1
suddengains	0.7.2	+1		2
tidypopgen	0.4.0	+1
tidytreatment	0.3.1	+1	+1
xpose	0.4.21		+1