[Rd] inst/CITATION produced error during Rcmd check <package>

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Pfaff, Bernhard wrote:

> >
> > That you are getting FIND not `find' suggests that you have
> > not followed
> > the instructions in README.packages correctly.  Please ensure you have
> > followed
> >
> Dear Prof. Ripley and Gabor,
>
> a big thanks to both of you for your quick and concise response.
> Yes, I did have read README.packages as well as  src/gnuwin32/INSTALL, but
> obviously not carefully enough; hence it is ill-tempted to set the correct
> order in the environment variable section for a *user* only, as I did
> erroneously, but rather in the *system variable* section (start -> Settings
> -> Control Panel -> System -> Environment Variables...). Incidentally, this
> error slipped my notice since 2001. It seems that I came around with this
> before using an 'inst' subdirectory for the first time.
>
> Having said this, would it be possible and sensible to alter
> src/gnuwin32/INSTALL and src/gnuwin332/README.packages in the following way:
>
> Citation (emphasized words enclosed by ***):
>
> BEWARE: `Native' ports of make are _not_ suitable (including that at
> the mingw site).  There were also problems with several earlier
> versions of the cygwin tools and dll.  To avoid frustration, please
> use our tool set, and make sure it is at the front of ***your path***
> (including before the Windows system directories).
>
> Proposal:
> Change ***your path*** and at the other places of its occurence in the two
> documents into ***your system variables path***.
>
> Reason:
> ***your path*** could be misinterpreted as the ***user path*** that might
> contain Windows system directories, too. Hence, it should be made clearer
> that is the path in *system variables* that matters.
>
> What is your opinion on this issue, Prof. Ripley? Would it make sense in
> your eyes, too? If so, I stand up to volunteer by applying these changes and
> send you the two files off-line.

It would not.  There is only only path (aka PATH under Windows shells)
for a shell but many different ways to set it, two of which you have
discovered.  (Win 95/98/ME do not even have the concepts of system and
user environment variables, so using that terminology will definitely
confuse such users.) How to check it is shell-specific, but we do ask you
to `make sure'.  On cmd32.exe, typing `PATH' gives you the current value,
but many users (maybe even most) use other shells.

For everything we might do to make things clearer for one user we run the
risk of making them muddier for ten others.  The only way I know to avoid
that is to be precise and use the correct terminology even if the users
may be unfamiliar with it.


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595