[Rd] Test suite failures in R-devel_2017-02-25_r72256

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>
>>>>>     on Mon, 27 Feb 2017 16:08:40 +0100 writes:

>>>>> Peter Simons <simons at nospf.cryp.to>
>>>>>     on Mon, 27 Feb 2017 10:30:39 +0100 writes:

    >> Hi, I tried compiling the latest pre-release for R 3.3.3
    >> for the NixOS Linux distribution [1], but the build fails
    >> during the "make check" phase because of the following 2
    >> issues:

    >> 1) The "tools" test in "tests/Examples" requires network
    >> access, which it doesn't have in our build
    >> environment. 

    > One may argue that the 'make check' (or even 'make check-all')
    > tests could / should be allowed more resources than the pure
    > build environment.

    >> Therefore, it fails as follows according to
    >> "tools-Ex.Rout.fail":

    >> | [...]
    >> | > set.seed(11)
    >> | > ## End(Don't show)
    >> | > pdb <- CRAN_package_db()
    >> | Warning in url(sprintf("%s/%s", cran, path), open = "rb") :
    >> |   URL 'http://CRAN.R-project.org/web/packages/packages.rds': status was 'Couldn't resolve host name'
    >> | Error in url(sprintf("%s/%s", cran, path), open = "rb") :
    >> |   cannot open the connection to 'http://CRAN.R-project.org/web/packages/packages.rds'
    >> | Calls: CRAN_package_db -> as.data.frame -> read_CRAN_object -> gzcon -> url
    >> | Execution halted

    >> I'm wondering whether it would be possible to extend the test suite
    >> with a configure-time flag that disable tests which depend on network
    >> access? My experience is that most modern Linux distributions run
    >> their builds in a restricted environment and therefore will run into
    >> trouble if the suite assumes that it can access the Internet.

    > [see above] Is it necessary to also run the 'make check' part in
    > that restricted environment?  Or could that ('checking") not get
    > more priviledges?

    > Note that you can only run  "make check" if you don't install
    > recommended packages, whereas more thorough testing would
    > include
    >      make check-devel
    > or even
    >      make check-all
    >
    > but these do have quite a bit more requirements including
    > recommended packages being present.

I have to correct myself:  The above paragraph may be misleading:

Much, if not all of
      make check-devel
and   make check-all
have worked well since R version 3.1.0  which had in its NEWS an entry

     • More of 'make check' will work if recommended packages are not
       installed: but recommended packages remain needed for thorough
       checking of an R build.

Further, the 'R-admin' manual (on 'make check-all' etc) contains

 |  Note that these checks are only run completely 
 |  if the recommended packages are installed.

so their presence is not required  but much recommended for
thorough testing.

Martin