[Bioc-devel] BioC 3.7 Windows check warning "file link zz in package yy does not exist "

Ramon Diaz-Uriarte rdiaz02 at gmail.com
Thu Apr 19 11:28:25 CEST 2018


On Wed, 18-April-2018, at 21:09:32, Martin Morgan <martin.morgan at roswellpark.org> wrote:
> On 04/18/2018 02:45 PM, Vincent Carey wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 11:23 AM, Martin Morgan 
>> <martin.morgan at roswellpark.org <mailto:martin.morgan at roswellpark.org>> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>     On 04/09/2018 10:51 AM, Ramon Diaz-Uriarte wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>         Dear Martin,
>> 
>>         On Fri, 06-April-2018, at 18:59:00, Martin Morgan
>>         <martin.morgan at roswellpark.org
>>         <mailto:martin.morgan at roswellpark.org>> wrote:
>> 
>>             On 04/06/2018 10:44 AM, Lluís Revilla wrote:
>> 
>>                 I have recently faced a similar warning.
>>                 This is when a link to a help page of another package is
>>                 broken (there is
>>                 not such help page). Although those could be false
>>                 positives:
>>                 mclapply help page does exists in parallel package.
>>                 as.MAList does exists in devel limma
>> 
>> 
>>             when \link-ing to another package, from RShowDoc("R-exts")
>>             section 2.5
>>             the [] has to name the html help page, not the name of the
>>             function. For
>>             instance, `mclapply` is documented on a man page called
>>             mcdummies.Rd
>>             (!), so '\link[parallel:mcdummies]{nearest} would presumably not
>> 
>> 
>>         I am confused here: as far as I can tell, there is an
>>         mclapply.html file:
>> 
>>         http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/parallel/html/mclapply.html
>>         <http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/parallel/html/mclapply.html>
>> 
>>         In addition, when I use the \link[parallel:mcdummies] I get a
>>         warning when
>>         testing under Linux.
>> 
>> 
>>     yeah, this is a pretty good one. If you look at
>> 
>>     https://github.com/wch/r-source/tree/trunk/src/library/parallel/man
>>     <https://github.com/wch/r-source/tree/trunk/src/library/parallel/man>
>> 
>>     you'll see that there are different man pages for different
>>     operating systems. On windows there is mcdummies, on unix mclapply &
>>     friends. This seems like a bad idea (users comparing notes to work
>>     through a problem get different help pages!). I don't really know
>>     how to link explicitly to these in a conditional manner.
>> 
>> 
>> Does this mean that to cross-reference to MArrayLM-class, I need to find 
>> limma source and
>> determine that the topic is covered in marraylm.Rd and use 
>> \link[limma:marraylm]{MArrayLM-class} for
>> the cross-reference? I don't see how this is good -- are the page names 
>> programmatically accessible
>> to developers who want to cross-reference? here's the grep result:
>> 
>> marraylm.Rd:\alias{MArrayLM-class}
>
> I agree that this is a bad idea.
>
> I think the first solution is not to use \link[pkg]{foo} when it is not 
> needed, which Writing R Extensions 
> (https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html#Cross_002dreferences) 
> says
>
>    "These are rarely needed, perhaps to refer to not-yet-installed 
> packages (but there the HTML help system will resolve the link at run 
> time) or in the normally undesirable event that more than one package 
> offers help on a topic"
>
> Packages you depend / import and even suggest will be installed by the 
> build system, so the only need is when two or more packages define the 
> same topic.
>
> But even then, when faced with a WARNING, and even Bioc core team 
> members or reviewers for new packages hassling you about correcting 
> WARNINGs, I personally would trade off sanity for perfection and stick 
> with \link[limma]{MArrayLM-class} -- there is a WARNING, but the warning 
> says that it's going to treat MArrayLM-class as a topic (alias) and 
> it'll get resolved correctly.
>

Martin, thanks for the detailed explanation (and the choice of sanity over
perfection :-) ). 


Best,

R.


> Also, for what it's worth, the opinion expressed in 
> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html#Cross_002dreferences 
> is that the fact that these WARNINGs are often Windows-specific is more 
> likely that the linux check is wrong (i.e., the WARNING should also be 
> generated there). I will try to investigate that further.
>
> Martin
>
>
>> 
>> 
>>     And in general it seems highly fragile to link to the name of the
>>     help page, rather than to the alias. I'd treat the 'warning' as
>>     (maybe bad) advice, rather than a requirement.
>> 
>>         On rereading section 2.5, I think \link[pkg]{foo} should work
>>         too (if there
>>         is a foo.html file.)
>> 
>> 
>>     it does (but on windows there is no mclapply.html). But also on
>>     windows the '...treated as a topic' part of the warning actually
>>     indicates that R has figured out where it should link, so you get
>>     the warning but also a working link.
>> 
>>         Nevertheless, section 2.5 indicates that \link[pkg]{foo} and
>>         \link[pkg:bar]{foo} are rarely needed, so I'll try to remove
>>         them (except
>>         in those cases, covered in section 2.5, where "more than one
>>         package offers
>>         help on a topic")
>> 
>> 
>>     yes the first pass should also be the simplest -- no fancy markup
>>     unless necessary.
>> 
>>     Martin
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>             generate the warning. Similarly
>>             \link[limma:asmalist]{as.MAList}.
>> 
>>             There are several things that still need exploration.
>> 
>>             - platform-specific (I have a vague understanding that
>>             Windows is
>>             special, but that might be outdated... [at least in this
>>             context...])
>> 
>> 
>>         I am only getting the warnings under Windows (which lead me to
>>         think it was
>>         windows misbehaving).
>> 
>> 
>>             - recent. I have to admit to changing the text of the
>>             warning with this
>>             commit
>> 
>> 
>>             https://github.com/wch/r-source/commit/cbd7ca1b1aedf0405e11ee2440fbde891cba524e
>>             <https://github.com/wch/r-source/commit/cbd7ca1b1aedf0405e11ee2440fbde891cba524e>
>> 
>>                but what I was intending to do was to change what it
>>             says, from the
>>             warning in release ('missing file link') to what it says,
>>             correctly, in
>>             devel 'file link ... does not exist and so has been treated
>>             as a topic'.
>>             The old text appears in release, and the new in devel, as
>>             anticipated.
>>             If I messed up somehow please let me know...
>> 
>>             - even with the warning, the link isn't broken in the
>>             dynamic help
>>             system (it might have been broken prior to my commit...).
>> 
>> 
>>         OK, thanks.
>> 
>>         Best,
>> 
>> 
>>         R.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>             Martin
>> 
>> 
>>                 HTH
>> 
>>                 On 6 April 2018 at 16:35, Vincent Carey
>>                 <stvjc at channing.harvard.edu
>>                 <mailto:stvjc at channing.harvard.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>>                     ive seen this too apropos bigrquery on windows
>> 
>>                     On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 10:22 AM Ramon Diaz-Uriarte
>>                     <rdiaz02 at gmail.com <mailto:rdiaz02 at gmail.com>>
>>                     wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>                         Dear All,
>> 
>>                         Two packages I maintain are showing, in Windows,
>>                         a warning during check
>>                         with messages like
>> 
>>                         Rd warning:
>>                         C:/Users/biocbuild/bbs-3.7-bioc/tmpdir/Rtmp21WlQD/R.INSTALL23343f935731/
>> 
>>                     OncoSimulR/man/oncoSimulIndiv.Rd:570:
>> 
>>                         file link 'mclapply' in package 'parallel' does
>>                         not exist and so has been
>>                         treated as a topic
>> 
>>                         or
>> 
>>                         Rd warning:
>>                         C:/Users/biocbuild/bbs-3.7-bioc/tmpdir/RtmpQfQaA1/R.
>> 
>>                     INSTALL1ec81d5b6233/ADaCGH2/man/inputToADaCGH.Rd:45:
>> 
>>                         file link 'as.MAList' in package 'limma' does
>>                         not exist and so has been
>>                         treated as a topic
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>                         that I cannot reproduce under Linux and that I
>>                         think are false
>>                         positives. Is there a way to avoid this warning?
>>                         As far as I can tell,
>>                         those links really exist.
>> 
>>                         Best,
>> 
>> 
>>                         R.
>> 
>>                         --
>>                         Ramon Diaz-Uriarte
>>                         Department of Biochemistry, Lab B-25
>>                         Facultad de Medicina
>>                         Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
>>                         Arzobispo Morcillo, 4
>>                         28029 Madrid
>>                         Spain
>> 
>>                         Phone: +34-91-497-2412
>> 
>>                         Email: rdiaz02 at gmail.com <mailto:rdiaz02 at gmail.com>
>>                         ramon.diaz at iib.uam.es <mailto:ramon.diaz at iib.uam.es>
>> 
>>                         http://ligarto.org/rdiaz
>> 
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>> 
>>         --
>>         Ramon Diaz-Uriarte
>>         Department of Biochemistry, Lab B-25
>>         Facultad de Medicina
>>         Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
>>         Arzobispo Morcillo, 4
>>         28029 Madrid
>>         Spain
>> 
>>         Phone: +34-91-497-2412
>> 
>>         Email: rdiaz02 at gmail.com <mailto:rdiaz02 at gmail.com>
>>         ramon.diaz at iib.uam.es <mailto:ramon.diaz at iib.uam.es>
>> 
>>         http://ligarto.org/rdiaz
>> 
>> 
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>
>
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-- 
Ramon Diaz-Uriarte
Department of Biochemistry, Lab B-25
Facultad de Medicina
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 
Arzobispo Morcillo, 4
28029 Madrid
Spain

Phone: +34-91-497-2412

Email: rdiaz02 at gmail.com
       ramon.diaz at iib.uam.es

http://ligarto.org/rdiaz



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