[Rd] package check note: no visible global function definition (in functions using Tcl/Tk)

[Seth Falcon]

Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> It seems that is happens if package tcltk is missing from the Depends: 
> list in the DESCRIPTION file.  I just tested with Amelia and homals and 
> that solved the various warnings in both cases.

Adding tcltk to Depends may not always be the desried solution.  If
tcltk is already in Suggests, for example, and the intention is to
optionally provide GUI features, then the code may be correct as-is.
That is, codetools will issue the NOTEs if you have a function that
looks like:

   f <- function() {
     if (require("tckltk")) {
             someTckltkFunctionHere()
     } else
             otherwiseFunction()
     }
   }

There are a number of packages in the BioC repository that provide
such optional features (not just for tcltk) and it would be nice to
have a way of declaring the use such that the NOTE is silenced.

[Note 1: I don't have any ideas at the moment for how this could
work.]

[Note 2: Despite the false-positives, I've already caught a handful of
bugs by reading over these NOTEs and think they provide a lot of value
to the check process]

+ seth

-- 
Seth Falcon | Computational Biology | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
http://bioconductor.org