[Rd] Testing R build when using --without-recommended-packages?

[Henrik Bengtsson]

Two questions to R Core:

1. Is R designed so that 'recommended' packages are optional, or
should that be considered uncharted territories?

2. Can such an R build/installation be validated using existing check methods?


--

Dirk, it's not clear to me whether you know for sure, or you draw
conclusions based your long experience and reading. I think it's very
important that others don't find this thread later on and read your
comments as if they're the "truth" (unless they are).  I haven't
re-read it from start to finish, but there are passages in 'R
Installation and Administration' suggesting you can build and install
R without 'recommended' packages.  For example, post-installation,
Section 'Testing an Installation' suggests you can run (after making
sure `make install-tests`):

cd tests
../bin/R CMD make check

but they fail the same way.  The passage continuous "... and other
useful targets are test-BasePackages and test-Recommended to run tests
of the standard and recommended packages (if installed) respectively."
(*).  So, to me that hints at 'recommended' packages are optional just
as they're "Priority: recommended".  Further down, there's also a
mentioning of:

$ R_LIBS_USER="" R --vanilla
> Sys.setenv(LC_COLLATE = "C", LC_TIME = "C", LANGUAGE = "en")
> tools::testInstalledPackages(scope = "base")

which also produces errors when 'recommended' packages are missing,
e.g. "Failed with error:  'there is no package called 'nlme'".

(*) BTW, '../bin/R CMD make test-BasePackages' gives "make: *** No
rule to make target 'test-BasePackages'.  Stop."

Thanks,

/Henrik

On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 12:22 PM Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:
>
>
> On 4 May 2021 at 11:25, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
> | FWIW,
> |
> | $ ./configure --help
> | ...
> |   --with-recommended-packages
> |                           use/install recommended R packages [yes]
>
> Of course. But look at the verb in your Subject: no optionality _in testing_ there.
>
> You obviously need to be able to build R itself to then build the recommended
> packages you need for testing.
>
> Dirk
>
> --
> https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org