[Rd] Should package version requirements assume installation from sources?

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 13 September 2022 at 16:11, Hervé Pagès wrote:
| FWIW this happens all the time in Bioconductor, where S4 is used very 
| intensively, when we make that kind of change to a core infrastructure 
| package. Then a bunch of Windows and Mac binary packages need to be 
| rebuilt because they contain cached stuff that is now out-of-sync with 
| the new state of affairs. The way we deal with this is by bumping the 
| version numbers of all the affected packages. This triggers automatic 
| rebuilt and propagation of the new binaries.

When you control the whole repo, and release it in batch, you can rebuild and
increment versions (more on that below).

| Note that these problems also affect packages that were already 
| installed on the user machines _prior_ to the changes to the upstream 
| package. Because the caching we are talking about is actually in the 
| package installation folder (and the fact that it ends up in the 
| binaries is just a consequence of that). So even on a system where 
| packages are installed from source, the affected packages need to be 
| reinstalled. Bumping the version numbers of all the affected packages 
| also solves that.
| 
| I don't see how this could be handled or mitigated via package requirements.

R uses a bunch of elements from the Debian package graph, namely

 Depends/Imports,
 Recommends,
 Suggests 
 Enhances (even if rarely used)

We may need to think about _the other direction_ via

 Breaks

where here, in Mikael's case, we could possibly say that Matrix: has a
Breaks: on the current (known, built with previous Matrix) packages
SeuratObject, conText, mcmcsae (each with a <= set to their current CRAN
version).  This would ensure that when Matrix updates, those packages also
update.

But it gets trickier because Debian can differentiate between an (upstream
source version), say, Matrix 1.5-1 _and its build versions_, say 1.5-1-1 so
the breakage would be of 1.5-1-1 but resolved by a new binary 1.5-1-2 which
sorts higher.  We don't have that, so maybe we cannot do the Breaks with
proper ordering. BioConductor can because of how it releases, CRAN cannot as
it does alter version numbers, only Maintainers do.

So maybe we need a few field in DESCRIPTION to tag 'RecommendedRebuilds'?
Or maybe CRAN would get a right to do an incremental release, so say 'my'
digest 0.6.29 would become 0.6.29.1 ?  But how to communicate this _in
general_ back to Maintainers?

Obviousy for binary packages we can cover this at the repo level, and CRAN
generally does but there are also 'from source' users out we should cover
here. So in short that is an open issue with no clear solution.

And all of this would of course require new and changed tooling.  As we often
maybe this too is something best tried first at package level via opt-in
alternatives to the functions in base package tools and utils.

Dirk

| Best,
| 
| H.
| 
| 
| On 13/09/2022 14:45, Mikael Jagan wrote:
| > [Arguably also appropriate for R-package-devel, but posted to R-devel
| >     as the discussion is aimed primarily at "experts" ... ]
| >
| > We, the authors of Matrix, have encountered a somewhat subtle issue
| > induced by caching of S4 classes and methods in package namespaces.
| >
| > The namespaces of three reverse dependent packages (SeuratObject, 
| > conText,
| > mcmcsae) cache the formal definition of our virtual class Matrix (and 
| > some
| > subclasses).  For example:
| >
| > > ns <- asNamespace("SeuratObject")
| > > grep("^[.]__C__.*Matrix$", names(ns), value = TRUE)
| > [1] ".__C__dMatrix"       ".__C__compMatrix"    ".__C__AnyMatrix"
| > [4] ".__C__generalMatrix" ".__C__CsparseMatrix" ".__C__sparseMatrix"
| > [7] ".__C__dsparseMatrix" ".__C__Matrix"
| >
| > The cached definition (which includes a _validity method_) is obtained 
| > from
| > the version of Matrix available when the reverse dependent package was 
| > built
| > from sources.  For example, if SeuratObject was built under Matrix 1.4-1,
| > then we get:
| >
| > > getValidity(ns$.__C__Matrix)
| > function (object)
| > {
| >     if (!isTRUE(r <- .Call(Dim_validate, object, "Matrix")))
| >         r
| >     else .Call(dimNames_validate, object)
| > }
| > <bytecode: 0x11e7ca508>
| > <environment: namespace:Matrix>
| >
| > whereas if SeuratObject was built under Matrix >= 1.5-0, then we get:
| >
| > > getValidity(ns$.__C__Matrix)
| > function (object)
| > .Call(Matrix_validate, object)
| > <bytecode: 0x107dc1698>
| > <environment: namespace:Matrix>
| >
| > There are two "questions" here:
| >
| > 1.  The symbol 'Matrix_validate' is not defined until Matrix 1.5-0.
| >     Is it necessary, for this reason alone, for SeuratObject to have
| >     'Imports: Matrix (>= 1.5-0)'?  Or can SeuratObject continue using
| >     'Imports: Matrix (>= 1.3-3)', at the risk of errors like
| >
| >     > Error: object 'Matrix_validate' not found
| >
| >     (as already seen here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73700130)?
| >
| >     Note that this error would not occur for anyone installing 
| > SeuratObject
| >     from sources, unless they decide to _downgrade_ Matrix after doing 
| > so.
| >     Hence this primarily concerns Windows and macOS where R users would
| >     typically install a binary built by CRAN (i.e., not on their system).
| >
| >     We are aware that package TMB tests in .onLoad() that the current 
| > Matrix
| >     version is equal to or greater than the version available at build 
| > time,
| >     thus avoiding a "strict" version requirement, but do not want this 
| > practice
| >     to spread ...
| >
| > 2.  For how long should Matrix retain the superceded 'Dim_validate' and
| >     'dimNames_validate', in order to ensure that "stale" cached validity
| >     methods continue to work?
| >
| > We hope that this discussion will highlight the potential ramifications
| > of importing classes and methods from other packages, and having one's
| > classes and methods imported _by_ other packages, especially for version
| > requirements.
| >
| > Mikael, Martin, and Doug
| >
| > ______________________________________________
| > R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
| > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
| 
| -- 
| Hervé Pagès
| 
| Bioconductor Core Team
| hpages.on.github using gmail.com
| 
| ______________________________________________
| R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
| https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

-- 
dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org