[Rd] Comments in the DESCRIPTION file

[Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini]

On 06/12/12 19:14, Uwe Ligges wrote:
>
>
> On 06.12.2012 18:22, Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini wrote:
>> On 07/11/12 11:01, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>>> On 07/11/12 09:53, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>>> On 12-11-07 4:26 AM, Christophe Genolini wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Is it possible to add comments in the DESCRIPTION file?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The read.dcf function is used to read the DESCRIPTION file, and it
>>>> doesn't support comments. (The current Debian control format
>>>> description does appear to support comments with leading # markers, but
>>>> R's read.dcf function doesn't support these.)
>>>>
>>>> You could probably get away with something like
>>>>
>>>> #: this is a comment
>>>>
>>>> since unrecognized fields are ignored, but I think this fact is
>>>> undocumented so I would say it's safer to assume that comments are not
>>>> supported.
>>>
>>> In that form, but lots of people have fields like
>>>
>>> Note: this is a comment
>>>
>>> and CRAN uses
>>>
>>> X-CRAN-Comment:
>>>
>> Dear Prof. Ripley,
>>
>> Last week I used the 'X-CRAN-Comment' field in the DESCRIPTION file of a
>> package that now is on CRAN. However, the comment I added is not shown
>> on the web page of the package on CRAN
>> (http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/hydroPSO).
>
>
> Err, please do not use it yourself.
> This is intended for CRAN internal purposes only, hence we call it
> X-CRAN-.... so we are assuming nobody else uses it.

Thanks Uwe for making this point clear.

All the best,

Mauricio

>
> Thanks,
> Uwe Ligges
>
>> Does it mean that the 'X-CRAN-Comment' field is not actually used by
>> CRAN or it is used but not shown on the CRAN web page of the package ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini
>>
>