[Rd] Building Packages on Windows using .Rbuildignore (PR#7379)

[maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch]

>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>>>>>     on Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:36:03 +0100 (CET) writes:

    Duncan> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:38:47 +0000 (UTC), Gabor
    Duncan> Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at myway.com> wrote :

    >> DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USING .RBUILDIGNORE AND NOT
    >> 
    >> The reason that the processing is different according to
    >> whether one uses .Rbuildignore or not is that R CMD build
    >> takes the .Rbuildignore file into account but R CMD
    >> install R CMD check R CMD build --binary do not take
    >> .Rbuildignore into account.

    Duncan> Okay, now I understand.  I think I'd call the last
    Duncan> of those a bug, and it would seem to me that the
    Duncan> install and check scripts should also respect this
    Duncan> directive.  I've now copied this to the r-bugs list.

    Duncan> (This was reported for Windows; I don't know if it
    Duncan> applies to other platforms as well.)

Yes it does (*), but I think it is NOT a bug but a feature,
at least for "check" and "install" (*) 
and very much desired in some cases :

For instance, the package developer may want more
regression tests in <Pkg>/tests/ :

1) Have extra *.Rout.save files that are architecture
   dependent and hence not for general distribution of the
   package, but important for the package developer in order to
   assure that functionality doesn't change when the package is
   extended, reorganized, ....

2) Have more  tests/*.R  files  that take a long time to run.
   Time that the package developer wants to spend, but doesn't
   dare to put on the daily CRAN or Bioconductor test suites.

3) similarly for vignettes

4) similar issues for experimental  R/*.R files  or man/*.Rd
   files for these.

One I thing that would be quite useful and would even solve
Gabor's problem: 
The introduction of a new command line switch, say "--build-ignore",
to the commands 'R CMD check' and 'R CMD install'

--------

(*) I do agree that  "R CMD build --binary" probably really should
    follow the ".Rbuildignore" file ``directives'' if it doesn't
    currently.

Martin