[Rd] DESCRIPTION: Imports: assertion of version?

[Martin Morgan]

On 03/19/2010 01:44 PM, Seth Falcon wrote:
> On 3/19/10 6:13 AM, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> from 'Writing R Extensions' [R version 2.11.0 Under development
>> (unstable) (2010-03-16 r51290)] one can read:
>>
>> "The optional `Imports' field lists packages whose name spaces are
>> imported from but which do not need to be attached. [...] Versions can
>> be specified, but will not be checked when the namespace is loaded."
>>
>> Is it a design decision that version specifications are not asserted
>> for packages under "Imports:", or is it a "lack of implementation"?
>> If a design decision, under what use cases do you want to specify the
>> version but not validating it?  Is it simply because there is no
>> mechanism for tracking the origin/package of the code importing the
>> other package, and hence we cannot know which DESCRIPTION file to
>> check against?
> 
> I'm not aware of any use case in which the current lack of checking is a
> "feature".  I would be interested in a patch (with testing) for this.

This thread

http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/e5/devel/08/12/0981.html

might provide some context.

Martin

> 
> + seth
> 


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Martin Morgan
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