[Rd] .Rbuildignore {was: ... upgrading an R (WINDOWS) installation ..}

[Duncan Murdoch]

Uwe Ligges wrote:
> Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> 
> 
>>On 7/6/05, Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 7/6/05, Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>"Gabor" == Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>>>  on Wed, 6 Jul 2005 08:24:49 -0400 writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>.......................
>>>>>.......................
>>>>>
>>>>> Gabor> I have cleaned up my batch files (somewhat) and posted them to
>>>>> Gabor> CRAN. See my recent post:
>>>>> Gabor> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2005-July/073400.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Gabor> If any of this functionality could migrate to R
>>>>> Gabor> itself that would be great.
>>>>>
>>>>> ........
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Gabor> 2. Also if Rcmd CHECK and Rcmd INSTALL were to
>>>>> Gabor> process .Rbuildignore like Rcmd BUILD does then
>>>>> Gabor> makepkg.bat would not have to do a build first.
>>>>>
>>>>>No!  {We have been here before, and I had explained before that}
>>>>>this is really undesired:  ".Rbuildignore" should contain what is
>>>>>ignored by build, but not by "check".
>>>>>It does make sense to have extra code and / or checks for 'R CMD check'
>>>>>that I as package developer want to run, but that are
>>>>>-- too time consuming
>>>>>-- too platform specific
>>>>>-- ......
>>>>>to be run during the daily checks on CRAN (e.g.) /
>>>>>to be run by others at all.
>>>>>
>>>>>{And BTW, AFAIK,  'Rcmd' is now `somewhat deprecated' in favor
>>>>>of "R CMD" since the latter is portable }
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Martin
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I think its too heavy handed an approach.  This should be up to the package
>>>>developer via a switch.  I like to put partially written code and other things
>>>>not intended for distribution in .Rbuildignore and don't want them checked or
>>>>installed until I move them out of .Rbuildignore.  That makes it
>>>>possible to keep
>>>>everything together.  Without this one must 1. keep them elsewhere
>>>>(which I am considering as an alternate approach to what I do now although
>>>>it would be a shame) or else 2. write batch files (which I have
>>>>written for XP) to do
>>>>a prebuild every time one does a check or install.
>>>>
>>>>One annoying aspect of R CMD is the requirement for capitalization.  Maybe
>>>>that's ok on UNIX but on Windows one is used to using upper and lower
>>>>case interchangeably.  Its also annoying to have to write two words instead of
>>>>one for a frequently issued command.   At any rate I always call it through
>>>
>>>Gabor, honestly, this is nonsense.
>>>
>>>1. Do you expect that R also changes under Windows because you are used
>>>to mix upper and lower case and want to say SUMMARY() or rowsums()?
>>>2. Do you really thing it is annoying to type "R CMD" rather than
>>>"Rcmd"? Hmm, anybody else has a space bar left for Gabor?
>>>
>>>Best,
>>>Uwe
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>my Rcmd.bat batch file so its not really an issue for me.
>>
>>
>>It was claimed its portable and that is true in the strictest sense that it
>>works on both UNIX and Windows but it would be even more
>>desirable if it were not just portable but also worked the way the target
>>system worked rather than just acting like a UNIX utility does
>>on Windows.  Ideally it would work as other Windows utilities work,
>>e.g. note that we run the following using upper and lower case and
>>get the same result:
>>
>>C:> net use ?
>>The syntax of this command is:
>>NET USE
>>[devicename | *] [\\computername\sharename[\volume] [password | *]]
>>...
>>
>>C:> NET USE ?
>>The syntax of this command is:
>>NET USE
>>[devicename | *] [\\computername\sharename[\volume] [password | *]]
>>...
> 
> 
> No! That something completely different: If Windows allows to use "net 
> use" and "NET USE" even if only the latter is the documeted way, OK. 
> These are, as you mentioned yourself, *Windows utilities* and you don't 
> want to port this syntax.
> 
> But if you type "R cmd", it is no longer portable, and "Rcmd" for sure 
> is not. "R CMD" is an R utility --- and R behaves case senstive.
> 
> Uwe Ligges

In fact, on Windows R is not case sensitive in the 1st or 3rd word on 
the line "R CMD install", only in the 2nd, so I can see Gabor's point. 
However, I have to admit I always use "Rcmd install"; I put the "R CMD 
..." version in place to help Unix refugees.

Duncan Murdoch