[Rd] R CMD check and Suggests Packages

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Hervé Pagès <hpages at fhcrc.org>
>>>>>     on Mon, 02 May 2011 11:55:08 -0700 writes:

    > Hi, On 11-04-28 07:00 PM, Dario Strbenac wrote:
    >> Hello,
    >> 
    >> In my description file, I have an example data package in
    >> Suggests: that I've deleted from my library to test what
    >> the user who doesn't have it will experience.
    >> 
    >> However, R CMD check won't even pass my package :
    >> 
    >> * checking package dependencies ... ERROR 
    >> Package required but not available: RepitoolsExamples
    >          ^^^^^^^^ confusing!

    > Wouldn't a message like

    >    Package required for full checking but not available:
    > RepitoolsExamples

    > be more appropriate and avoid a confusion that we've seen
    > for a very long time now?

Sure.  But such messages are already produced in current
versions of R, .. at least they are there in the package checking
source, see 
	format.check_package_depends()  in  
	src/library/tools/R/QC.R  
which has e.g.,

      if(length(bad <- x$suggests_but_not_installed) > 1L) {
          c(gettext("Packages suggested but not available for checking:"),
	 ....

and similar for 'Enhances' in lieu of 'Suggests'.

If Dario really uses R 2.13.0 (or newer),
and he gets the above error message for a package that is not
required but only suggested,
I think we'd need a clear, ideally simple,
reproducible example, here.

Martin