delma is a package for converting metadata statements written in
markdown, RMarkdown or Quarto markdown to Ecological Metadata
Language (EML). It is named for a genus
of legless lizards that are endemic to Australia, whose name happens to
contain the letters ‘e’, ‘m’ and ‘l’.
The logo depicts a striped legless lizard (Delma impar) in the style of the classic mobile game ‘snake’, a play on the observation that Delma are often mistaken for snakes. It was drawn by Martin Westgate.
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please contact us.
This package is under active development, and is not yet available on CRAN. You can install the latest development version from GitHub with:
install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("AtlasOfLivingAustralia/delma")Load the package:
library(delma)The primary use case for delma is to build metadata statements for
sharing biodiversity data. The first step is to create a markdown file,
and add any headings that you like that conform to the EML standard. The
header ‘level’ (i.e. number of #) is used to designate the degree of
nesting. If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can use the
example statement provided:
use_metadata("my_metadata_statement.Rmd")This document can be knit like any other Rmarkdown document, using
either the ‘knit’ button in RStudio, or the function
rmarkdown::knit(). In both cases it will render to the format defined
in the yaml section, which defaults to html_document, but can easily
be changed. To convert this document to EML, use:
render_metadata("my_metadata_statement.Rmd",
"metadata.xml")Note that EML documents use the extension .xml. To check that your
document is formatted in accordance with the EML standard, use:
check_metadata("metadata.xml")For a more detailed description of delma’s capabilities and methods, see the ‘Quick start guide’ vignette.
To generate a citation for the package version you are using, you can run:
citation(package = "delma")
#> To cite delma in publications use:
#>
#> Westgate M, Balasubramaniam S, Kellie D (2025). _delma: Convert
#> Rmarkdown and Quarto documents to Ecological Metadata Language_. R
#> package version 0.1.0, <https://delma.ala.org.au>.
#>
#> A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is
#>
#> @Manual{,
#> title = {delma: Convert Rmarkdown and Quarto documents to Ecological Metadata Language},
#> author = {Martin Westgate and Shandiya Balasubramaniam and Dax Kellie},
#> year = {2025},
#> note = {R package version 0.1.0},
#> url = {https://delma.ala.org.au},
#> }The current recommended citation is:
Westgate MJ, Balasubramaniam S & Kellie D (2024) Convert Rmarkdown and Quarto documents to Ecological Metadata Language. R Package version 0.1.0.