[Bioc-devel] NEWS.md

[Laurent Gatto]

Dear all,

My experience (and things may have changed since I set this up) is that
NEWS and NEWS.md serve different purposes despite a very similar
syntax. The former is used by news() and displayed on the Bioconductor
page (would NEWS.md be used if NEWS was absent?), while the one with the
md extension displays nicely (including links) on github and in pkgdown
sites.

My solution is a Makefile recipe [1] (contributed by Sebastian Gibb)
that converts NEWS.md into NEWS while updating the syntax and removing
markdown links (typically to github issues, that are automatically
expanded from #123 to a full URL via a github hook).

NEWS: #' create plain text NEWS from NEWS.md if available
        test -f ${PKGDIR}/NEWS.md && sed '/^# .*$$/d; /^## .*$$/{s/^## //g; p; s/./-/g}; /^###\+/{s/./\u&/g}; s/^##\+ //g; 1,2{/^[[:space:]]*$$/d}; s/\[\(#[0-9]\+\)\]([^)]\+)/\1/g' ${PKGDIR}/NEWS.md > ${PKGDIR}/NEWS

(where ${PKGDIR} is the package directory)

Unsure whether this helps or adds further to the confusion.

Best wishes,

Laurent

[1] https://github.com/ComputationalProteomicsUnit/maker


On 25 September 2018 13:55, Shepherd, Lori wrote:

> It can be used currently.  If you remove the .md extension but keep the format in should be recognized.  As described in the ?news help page
>
>
>
>      If 'package' is '"R"' (default), a news db is built with the news
>      since the 3.0.0 release of R (corresponding to R's top-level
>      'NEWS' file).  Otherwise, if the given add-on package can be found
>      in the given libraries, it is attempted to read its news in
>      structured form from files 'inst/NEWS.Rd', 'NEWS' or 'inst/NEWS'
>      (in that order).
>
>
>
> Please also note your news file is formatted incorrectly.  from the ?news
>
>
>      The plain text 'NEWS' files in add-on packages use a variety of
>      different formats; the default news reader should be capable to
>      extract individual news entries from a majority of packages from
>      the standard repositories, which use (slight variations of) the
>      following format:
>
>         • Entries are grouped according to version, with version header
>           "Changes in version" at the beginning of a line, followed by
>           a version number, optionally followed by an ISO 8601 format
>           date, possibly parenthesized.
>
>         • Entries may be grouped according to category, with a category
>           header (different from a version header) starting at the
>           beginning of a line.
>
>         • Entries are written as itemize-type lists, using one of 'o',
>           '*', '-' or '+' as item tag.  Entries must be indented, and
>           ideally use a common indentation for the item texts.
>
>
>
>
> Please remove the pound sign (# ) from the header entry -  and use "Changes in version"  not "BioCor"
>
>
> so for example:
>
>
>
> # BioCor 0.99.25
>
> * Update Vignette to just output html
>
> # BioCor 0.99.24
>
> * Submit the package to the Bioconductor project
>
> # BioCor 0.99.23
>
> * Add the Bioconductor webhook
>
>
> Would become
>
>
> Changes in version 0.99.25
>
> * Update Vignette to just output html
>
> Changes in version 0.99.24
>
> * Submit the package to the Bioconductor project
>
> Changes in version 0.99.23
>
> * Add the Bioconductor webhook
>
>
>
>
> Lori Shepherd
>
> Bioconductor Core Team
>
> Roswell Park Cancer Institute
>
> Department of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics
>
> Elm & Carlton Streets
>
> Buffalo, New York 14263
>
> ________________________________
> From: Bioc-devel <bioc-devel-bounces using r-project.org> on behalf of Lluís Revilla <lluis.revilla using gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:20:39 AM
> To: bioc-devel
> Subject: [Bioc-devel] NEWS.md
>
> Dear Bioconductor team,
>
> I found that the new R version 3.5.1, to be used with the new release of
> Bioconductor, supports the ‘NEWS.md' files.
>
> I updated my package (BioCor) to use `NEWS.md`. However, on the devel
> landing page of the package stills shows the old file NEWS file. This is
> consistent with the developer page (
> https://www.bioconductor.org/developers/package-guidelines/#news).
>
> Will this be a requirement or can I keep the NEWS.md file?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Lluís
>
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>
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--
Laurent Gatto | @lgatt0
http://lgatto.github.io/