[Rd] [External] Never exporting .__global__ and .__suppressForeign__?

[Richard M. Heiberger]

Ivan,

thank you for including me on this thread on R-devel.

Please be sure to see the last email in my R-pkg-devel thread on RcmdrPlugin.HH_1.1-48.tar.gz,
in which I discuss how I responded to this issue, specifically to my detailed discussion
in the RcmdrPlugion.HH/NEWS.

Rich


> On Mar 6, 2024, at 06:24, Ivan Krylov <ikrylov using disroot.org> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> (Dear Richard, I hope you don't mind being Cc:'d on this thread in
> R-devel. This is one of the ways we can prevent similar problems from
> happening in the future.)
>
> Sometimes, package authors who use both exportPattern('.') and
> utils::globalVariables(...) get confusing WARNINGs about undocumented
> exports:
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/2024q1/010531.html
>
> I would like to suggest adding the variables used by
> utils::globalVariables and utils::suppressForeignCheck to the list of
> things that should never be exported:
>
> Index: src/library/base/R/namespace.R
> ===================================================================
> --- src/library/base/R/namespace.R (revision 86054)
> +++ src/library/base/R/namespace.R (working copy)
> @@ -806,7 +806,8 @@
>         if (length(exports)) {
>             stoplist <- c(".__NAMESPACE__.", ".__S3MethodsTable__.",
>                           ".packageName", ".First.lib", ".onLoad",
> -                          ".onAttach", ".conflicts.OK", ".noGenerics")
> +                          ".onAttach", ".conflicts.OK", ".noGenerics",
> +                          ".__global__", ".__suppressForeign__")
>             exports <- exports[! exports %in% stoplist]
>         }
> if(lev > 2L) message("--- processing exports for ", dQuote(package))
>
> (Indeed, R CMD check is very careful to only access these variables
> using the interface functions in the utils package, so there doesn't
> seem to be any code that depends on them being exported, and they
> usually aren't.)
>
> Alternatively (or maybe additionally), it may be possible to enhance
> the R CMD check diagnostics by checking whether the name of the
> undocumented object starts with a dot and asking the user whether it
> was intended to be exported. This is not as easy to implement due to
> tools:::.check_packages working with the log output from
> tools::undoc(), not the object itself. Would a change to
> tools:::format.undoc be warranted?
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Ivan