Get the Latest Gencode Release Dynamically

This function retrieves the latest available release of the Gencode database for a given species (human or mouse) by querying the relevant FTP directory. It automates the process of identifying the latest release of annotations for human or mouse.

Usage

get_latest_release(species, verbose = TRUE)

Arguments

species

A character string indicating the species. Supported values are:

• "human"

• "mouse"

verbose

Logical. If TRUE (default), the function prints the latest release.

Value

A character string representing the latest release version for the specified species (e.g., "release_42" for human or "release_36" for mouse).

Details

The function accesses the GENCODE FTP directory and parses the available folders to determine the latest release. It is particularly useful for bioinformatics workflows that require up-to-date annotation files without manual checks.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Retrieve the latest release version for human
human_release <- get_latest_release(species = "human", verbose = FALSE)
cat("Latest human GENCODE release: release_47")

# Get the latest release for mouse
mouse_release <- get_latest_release("mouse", verbose = TRUE)
} # }