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verbalisr

ANALYTICS
Velocity0.0

Describe Pedigree Relationships in Words

Turns pedigree relationships into readable sentences, and is now tuning how those sentences read.

r-packagepedigreegeneticsformattingpedsuite
Current state
verbalisr describes the relationship between two people in a pedigree in plain language, and sits inside the pedsuite family alongside pedtools and ribd. The recent arc is about output control rather than new analysis: 0.6.0 added a simplify option for lineal and avuncular descriptions, 0.7.1 added abbreviate and collapse formatting arguments, and 0.7.2 made relationships with many paths noticeably faster.
Where it's heading
The package has moved from getting the descriptions correct to making them presentable and cheap to compute. Every recent release pins a newer pedtools, so its version cadence is tied to the wider pedsuite rather than to demand from its own users. Path-heavy pedigrees were evidently the practical bottleneck, and the latest release addresses that directly.
Prediction
Expect the next release to follow a pedtools or ribd bump, most likely with further formatting options rather than new relationship categories, since the description logic itself has been stable across the entries shown.

Recent moves

  1. 1y ago

    Many-path relationships resolve significantly faster

    A code optimisation cuts the cost of describing relationships with many connecting paths — the case most likely to be slow in real pedigrees. The accompanying pedtools 2.7.1 requirement continues the pattern of verbalisr tracking the pedsuite version line.

    View source ↗
  2. 1y ago

    New abbreviate and collapse formatting arguments

    Two formatting arguments give callers control over how compact the generated description is. It extends the same output-control theme 0.6.0 opened with simplify, and the release notes an expanded test suite behind it.

    View source ↗
  3. 2y ago

    simplify option shortens lineal and avuncular descriptions

    format.pairrel() gains a simplify argument that collapses lineal and avuncular relationships into shorter phrasings, and verbalise() handles a list of pedigrees more sensibly. This is the release that starts the output-control arc the later versions build on.

    View source ↗
  4. 2y ago

    Internal code updates with no user-visible change

    The release notes state plainly that nothing user-visible changed. It sits in the quiet stretch before the formatting work of 0.6.0.

    View source ↗
  5. 2y ago

    CRAN documentation fix, CITATION file, dependency bumps

    A CRAN package-doc complaint is resolved, a CITATION file is added, and the pedtools and ribd minimums move up. Housekeeping, but the dependency floor is the recurring mechanism that drives this package's releases.

    View source ↗
  6. 3y ago

    Maintenance release; README cites the QuickPed paper

    Self-described as maintenance only: a README link to the BMC Bioinformatics paper documenting the underlying algorithm, and a tweak to how double asymmetric relationships are described. The paper reference is the most substantive part.

    View source ↗