[Rd] R CMD check and Suggests Packages

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Dario Strbenac <D.Strbenac at garvan.org.au>
>>>>>     on Wed, 4 May 2011 10:00:07 +1000 writes:

    > Hello,
    >> 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.

    > I was able to reproduce it. I made a new package with package.skeleton(), then added Suggests: RepitoolsExamples to the DESCRIPTION file, and the result of check was :

    > * using log directory /home/darstr/testPackage.Rcheck
    > * using R version 2.13.0 (2011-04-13)
    > * using platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
    > * using session charset: UTF-8
    > * checking for file testPackage/DESCRIPTION ... OK
    > * checking extension type ... Package
    > * this is package testPackage version 1.0
    > * checking package dependencies ... ERROR
    > Package required but not available: RepitoolsExamples

Thank you, Dario.

For exactly this, I get the correct

* checking package dependencies ... NOTE
Vorgeschlagenes, aber nicht zur Überprüfung verfügbares Paket: aPackageNotFoundTypically

(I changed the line in 'DESCRIPTION' to
----------------------------------------
Suggests: aPackageNotFoundTypically
----------------------------------------

which is exactly the 'de' translation for
the one I mentioned earlier in this thread:
      c(gettextf("Package suggested but not available for checking: %s", bad),
    
I'm appending the slightly modified version of your testPackage.tar.gz
which only gives one 'NOTE' (see above) and no warning in  
'R CMD check'...
......
aah .. but when I rerun it as "Joe Average" user, instead of
myself, I get your

* checking package dependencies ... ERROR
Package required but not available: aPackageNotFoundTypically

.... dig dig...
....
I see, it's because in a file I source in ~/.bashrc I have
   export _R_CHECK_FORCE_SUGGESTS_=false
which of course is what Brian and Simon alluded to when they
told you you could turn off the behavior ...

Ok, so we have finally converged....

I think I agree with Hervé: If a user has not set the
magic environment variable he should get an ERROR instead of a NOTE
but the error *message* should be the correct one.

Ok, so thanks to Dario and Herve for persevering...
Martin