irelink: Fast Probabilistic Record Linkage

Performs fast, scalable probabilistic record linkage and deduplication using the Fellegi-Sunter model. Records lacking a shared unique identifier are compared across configurable dimensions using exact, fuzzy, and distance-based comparisons, with model parameters estimated via unsupervised Expectation-Maximization. Multiple SQL backends are supported through 'DBI', including execution via 'DuckDB'. This package is a translation of the Python 'splink' library by Linacre et al. (2022) <doi:10.23889/ijpds.v7i3.1794> into idiomatic R.

Version: 0.0.1
Depends: R (≥ 4.1.0)
Imports: cli, DBI, duckdb, ggplot2, glue, rlang, stringdist, tibble, tidyselect
Suggests: dbplyr, dplyr, igraph, jsonlite, knitr, nanoparquet, rmarkdown, RSQLite, spelling, testthat (≥ 3.0.0), withr
Published: 2026-10-10
DOI: 10.32614/CRAN.package.irelink (may not be active yet)
Author: Christopher T. Kenny ORCID iD [aut, cre, cph], Robin Linacre [cph] (Lead author of splink, the Python package this is derived from), Sam Lindsay [cph] (Author of splink), Theodore Manassis [cph] (Author of splink), Tom Hepworth [cph] (Author of splink), Andy Bond [cph] (Author of splink), Ross Kennedy [cph] (Author of splink), UK Ministry of Justice [cph] (Copyright holder of splink)
Maintainer: Christopher T. Kenny <ctkenny at proton.me>
BugReports: https://github.com/christopherkenny/irelink/issues
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Copyright: see file COPYRIGHTS
URL: https://christophertkenny.com/irelink/, https://github.com/christopherkenny/irelink
NeedsCompilation: no
Language: en-US
Materials: README, NEWS
CRAN checks: irelink results

Documentation:

Reference manual: irelink.html , irelink.pdf
Vignettes: Advanced Workflows (source, R code)
Deduplication with Evaluation (source, R code)
Translating from fastLink (source, R code)
Translating from Splink (source, R code)
Getting Started (source, R code)
Record Linkage Across Datasets (source, R code)

Downloads:

Package source: irelink_0.0.1.tar.gz
Windows binaries: r-devel: not available, r-release: not available, r-oldrel: not available
macOS binaries: r-release (arm64): irelink_0.0.1.tgz, r-oldrel (arm64): irelink_0.0.1.tgz, r-release (x86_64): irelink_0.0.1.tgz, r-oldrel (x86_64): irelink_0.0.1.tgz

Linking:

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