[Rd] Suggestion: Make _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=warn the default for R 3.6.2

[Tomas Kalibera]

On 11/18/19 3:44 PM, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
> .On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 12:35 AM Martin Maechler
> <maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>>>>>>> Henrik Bengtsson
>>>>>>>      on Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:42:32 -0800 writes:
>>      > Hi,
>>
>>      > I'm not sure where we are in getting CRAN packages getting their
>>      > _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=true bugs fixed (*), but maybe it'd help to
>>      > make _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=warn the new default in the upcoming R
>>      > 3.6.2?
>>
>> Interesting, I had similar thoughts the last few days
>> ... but not for R 3.6.x --- I think it's out of the question to
>> do that for a "minor" update --- but for R 4.0.0.
>>
>>      > Warnings of type:
>>
>>      > $ R --vanilla
>>      >> Sys.setenv("_R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_" = "warn")
>>      >> c(TRUE, FALSE) && TRUE
>>      > [1] TRUE
>>      > Warning message:
>>      > In c(TRUE, FALSE) && TRUE : 'length(x) = 2 > 1' in coercion to 'logical(1)'
>>
>>      > could help encourage more package maintainers to fix these bugs
>>      > sooner. Enabling this warning by default is in line with what the
>>      > current default behavior for _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_ bugs:
>>
>>      >> if (c(TRUE, FALSE)) 42
>>      > [1] 42
>>      > Warning message:
>>      > In if (c(TRUE, FALSE)) 42 :
>>      > the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used
>>
>>      > which has been the case for many years.
>>
>>      > Hopefully in a not too far future, we get to a point where we can have
>>      > _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=true and _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_=true
>>      > as the new defaults.
>>
>> Exactly.  My own thoughts (mentioned above) were actually more about
>> the *other* _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_* variable, i.e., _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_
>> and that ---- as I have only noticed these days, when considering
>> the exact impact of the upcoming
>>
>>      class(<matrix>)  |-->  c("matrix", "array")
>>
>> change --- has actually *not* been part of the  '--as-cran'
>> checks, nor (AFAIK, but I don't really know) of extra CRAN
>> incoming checks.
>>
>> I'm proposing to add   _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_=true
>> to the --as-cran  checks  ASAP (within weeks)
> To do that, I think we would need:
>
> _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_=package:_R_CHECK_PACKAGE_NAME_,abort,verbose
>
> such that the check only applies to the code of the package being R
> CMD check:ed and not to code elsewhere. If not, there will be lots of
> confusing "false-positives" and extra work for CRAN. Unfortunately,
> the (great) "package:_R_CHECK_PACKAGE_NAME_" mechanism is not
> implemented for _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_.

The mechanism should be the same for both variables (see R Internals). 
It is implemented using a single function in R-devel.

Tomas

>
>> and indeed, I
>> think we should consider to have *both*  _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_* = true
>> become the default in R 4.0.0.
> That would be great, but I'm a bit skeptical at the same time - I
> think R 4.0.0 might be too optimistic but I won't complain if that
> would be goal. I suspect there are still lots of CRAN packages that
> would break this way overnight which would cause a major headache for
> everything and much work for the CRAN Team.  This is why I wrote "I'm
> not sure where we are in getting CRAN packages getting their
> _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=true bugs fixed"; I'm not aware of anyone
> having checked the CRAN status for this bug.
>
> /Henrik
>
>> Martin Maechler
>> ETH Zurich  and  R Core
>>
>>
>>      > (*) I understand that CRAN incoming checks with
>>      > _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=package:_R_CHECK_PACKAGE_NAME_,abort,verbose,
>>      > so all packages submitted to CRAN have to pass this check.  I don't
>>      > think Bioconductor checks for these yet, but I could be wrong.
>>
>>      > /Henrik
>>
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