[Rd] R CMD check problem with R 3.0.2

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>
>>>>>     on Sun, 27 Oct 2013 08:56:31 -0400 writes:

    > On 13-10-26 9:49 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
    >> On Oct 25, 2013, at 12:12 PM, Yihui Xie wrote:
    >> 
    >>> This has been asked soooo many times that I think it may
    >>> be a good idea for R CMD check to just stop when the
    >>> user passes a directory instead of a tar ball to it, or
    >>> automatically run R CMD build before moving on. In my
    >>> opinion, sometimes an FAQ and a bug are not entirely
    >>> different.
    >>> 
    >> 
    >> +1 -- and I'd do the same for R CMD INSTALL. If someone
    >> insists, there could be --force or something like that
    >> for those that really want to work on directories despite
    >> all the issues with that, but IMHO the default should be
    >> for both INSTALL and check to bail out if not presented
    >> with a file -- it would save a lot of people a lot of
    >> time spent in chasing ghost issues.

    > That seems like a reasonable suggestion.  I wouldn't want
    > to lose the ability to install or check a directory; for
    > development of packages like rgl which have a lot of
    > compiled code, installing from a tarball takes a lot
    > longer than installing when all of the code has already
    > been compiled.

Even more extreme for  Matrix, and as you mention other packages
with a considerable portion of compiled code.

R CMD build also does some checks that then are done again, when
you  R CMD check the tarball.
It really adds a considerable amount of time/work to have to do
both and I'd strongl oppose to disable checking of the source
directory of a package.

Actually, I do think that the 'build/check' R code could and should be
modularized so that checking a directory with an 'Authors at R' in DESCRIPTION
((and no 'Maintainer'/'Authors' as they are auto-created)) would
still work fine...


    > On the other hand, it isn't all that hard to put together
    > an R function or shell script to do it (the hardest part
    > is figuring out the name of the tarball).  For example:

    > installpkgdir <- function(dir) { 
    > x <- system(paste("R CMD build", dir), intern=TRUE)
    >  ....
    > }

    > I haven't tested this much, and it doesn't offer options
    > to the build or install steps, but it could be the basis
    > of a simple function that always builds a tarball before
    > installing a source directory.

well, there have been other ways to bundle  "build + check", of
course, but for some developers, package building really is not fast,
notably for people like me with a large library of R packages,
where the all dependent packages incl those in 'Suggests' are
sought and checked for the correct version, etc.
Also, by default the vignette rebuilding; manuals etc take time,
and it used to need other manual manipulations if you disabled those,
and then wanted to check the tarball.

I'd be very much inconvenienced if I'd need to build packages
every time I want to check them during development.  Things are
different shortly before a release.

Martin

    > Duncan Murdoch


    >> Cheers, Simon
    >> 
    >> 
    >> 
    >>> Regards, Yihui
    >>> --
    >>> Yihui Xie <xieyihui at gmail.com> Web: http://yihui.name
    >>> Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215
    >>> Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA
    >>> 
    >>> 
    >>> On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 10:37 AM, Sanford Weisberg
    >>> <sandy at umn.edu> wrote:
    >>>> Using SUSE Linux, Windows 32 bit and Windows 64 bit R
    >>>> 3.0.2 , I am unable to use R CMD check successfully.
    >>>> Here is the Windows 64 bit report:
    >>>> 
    >>>> 
    >>>> Z:\R\source\effects>R CMD check pkg * using log
    >>>> directory 'Z:/R/source/effects/pkg.Rcheck' * using R
    >>>> version 3.0.2 (2013-09-25) * using platform:
    >>>> x86_64-w64-mingw32 (64-bit) * using session charset:
    >>>> ISO8859-1 * checking for file 'pkg/DESCRIPTION'
    >>>> ... ERROR Required fields missing or empty: 'Author'
    >>>> 'Maintainer'
    >>>> 
    >>>> The file DESCRIPTION looks like this:
    >>>> 
    >>>> Package: effects Version: 2.3-0 Date: 2013/10/22 Title:
    >>>> Effect Displays for Linear, Generalized Linear,
    >>>> Multinomial-Logit, Proportional-Odds Logit Models and
    >>>> Mixed-Effects Models Authors at R: c(person("John", "Fox",
    >>>> role = c("aut", "cre"), email = " jfox at mcmaster.ca"),
    >>>> person("Sanford", "Weisberg", role = "aut", email =
    >>>> "sandy at umn.edu"), person("Michael", "Friendly", role =
    >>>> "aut", email = "friendly at yorku.ca "), person("Jangman",
    >>>> "Hong", role = "aut"), person("Robert", "Andersen",
    >>>> role = "ctb"), person("David", "Firth", role = "ctb"),
    >>>> person("Steve", "Taylor", role = "ctb")) Depends:
    >>>> lattice, grid, colorspace Suggests: nlme, lme4, MASS,
    >>>> nnet, poLCA, heplots LazyLoad: yes LazyData: yes
    >>>> Description: Graphical and tabular effect displays,
    >>>> e.g., of interactions, for linear generalized linear,
    >>>> multinomial-logit, proportional-odds logit models,
    >>>> mixed-effect models, polytomous latent-class models and
    >>>> multivariate linear models.  License: GPL (>= 2) URL:
    >>>> http://www.r-project.org,
    >>>> http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/
    >>>> 
    >>>> The 'Author' and 'Maintainer' fields should be
    >>>> automatically generated.  With version 3.0.1, I had no
    >>>> such problem, and my coauthors who use Eciplse and
    >>>> R-studio have no problems with R 3.0.2.  John Fox
    >>>> suggested the following:
    >>>> 
    >>>> When R CMD build creates a package tarball it writes
    >>>> the information from Authors at R into the Author and
    >>>> Maintainer fields. I think that Sandy's problem is
    >>>> produced by checking the package source directory
    >>>> rather than a package source tarball. I use RStudio to
    >>>> check packages, and it automatically builds the tarball
    >>>> first, which is the recommended procedure.  R-Forge
    >>>> does that too. Michael uses Eclipse, and if I remember
    >>>> right, it too creates a tarball (but I haven't used it
    >>>> in quite some time).
    >>>> 
    >>>> Is this a bug in R CMD check?
    >>>> 
    >>>> 
    >>>> --
    >>>> Sanford Weisberg, sandy at umn.edu <sandy at umn.edu> For
    >>>> undergraduate matters: undergrad at stat.umn.edu
    >>>> University of Minnesota, School of Statistics 312 Ford
    >>>> Hall, 224 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
    >>>> 612-625-8355, FAX 612-624-8868
    >>>> 
    >>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
    >>>> 
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    >>> 
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    >> 
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