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

[Henrik Bengtsson]

On 6/11/07, Seth Falcon <sfalcon at fhcrc.org> wrote:
> 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.

Same scenario here: I am using Suggest and I found that the NOTEs go
away if you call the function with double-colon (::), e.g.
tcltk::someTckltkFunctionHere().

I also got several NOTEs about non-declared objects if I used
request(<pkgname>), but they go away with request("<pkgname>").

>
> [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]

I second this. I recently found a lot of typos, bugs, and "left overs"
in my code thanks 'codetools'.  It's a great tool - thanks!

Henrik

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