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

[Henrik Bengtsson]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 6:55 AM Tomas Kalibera <tomas.kalibera using gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.

Oh, I am glad I was wrong about this. This is great news. Then, it is
possible to enable this check by having --as-cran set:

_R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_=package:_R_CHECK_PACKAGE_NAME_,abort,verbose

As Martin says, I think this would be great to add.  R CMD check
--cran already does:

_R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=package:_R_CHECK_PACKAGE_NAME_,abort,verbose

For those who still follow, the main point of my original post had
nothing to do with 'R CMD check'.  Instead, I wanted base R to default
to:

_R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=warn

such that end users (and developers) will get run-time warnings about
this type of bug. Without "warn", there's a great risk these bugs will
not be fixed in a very long time.  Also, using "warn" will go
undetected by 'R CMD check' (as now).  And 'R CMD check --as-cran'
will still detect them (as now).

/Henrik

>
> 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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