[Rd] optional package dependency

[Jeff Ryan]

Hi Ross,

The quantmod package makes available routines from a variety of
contributed packages, but gets around your issues with a bit of, um,
trickery.

Take a look here (unless your name is Kurt ;-) ):

http://r-forge.r-project.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/pkg/R/buildModel.methods.R?rev=367&root=quantmod&view=markup

It would be nice to have Suggests really mean suggests to check, but I
am sure there is a good reason it doesn't.

HTH
Jeff

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 12:00 AM, Ross Boylan <ross at biostat.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> I have a package that can use rmpi, but works fine without it.  None of
> the automatic test code invokes rmpi functionality.  (One test file
> illustrates how to use it, but has quit() as its first command.)
>
> What's the best way to handle this?  In particular, what is the
> appropriate form for upload to CRAN?
>
> When I omitted rmpi from the DESCRITPION file R CMD check gave
> <quote>
> * checking R code for possible problems ... NOTE
> alldone: no visible global function definition for ‘mpi.bcast.Robj’
> alldone: no visible global function definition for ‘mpi.exit’
> <quote>
> followed by many more warnings.
>
> When I add
> Suggests: Rmpi
> in DESCRIPTION the check stops if the package is not installed:
> <quote>
> * checking package dependencies ... ERROR
> Packages required but not available:
>  Rmpi
> </quote>
> Rmpi is not required, but I gather from previous discussion on this list
> that suggests basically means required for R CMD check.
>
> NAMESPACE seems to raise similar issues; I don't see any mechanism for
> optional imports.  Also, I have not used namespaces, and am not eager to
> destabilize things so close to release.  At least, I hope I'm close to
> release :)
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
> Ross Boylan
>
> P.S. Thanks, Duncan, for your recent advice on my help format problem
> with R 2.7.  I removed the nested \description, and now things look OK.
>
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-- 
Jeffrey Ryan
jeffrey.ryan at insightalgo.com

ia: insight algorithmics
www.insightalgo.com