[Rd] Question regarding .make_numeric_version with non-character input

[Andrea Gilardi]

Thank you very much Dirk for your kind words and for confirming the bug. 
Next week I will open a new issue on Bugzilla adding the related patch.

Kind regards

Andrea

On 29/03/2024 20:14, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> On 29 March 2024 at 17:56, Andrea Gilardi via R-devel wrote:
> | Dear all,
> |
> | I have a question regarding the R-devel version of .make_numeric_version() function. As far as I can understand, the current code (https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/66b91578dfc85140968f07dd4e72d8cb8a54f4c6/src/library/base/R/version.R#L50-L56) runs the following steps in case of non-character input:
> |
> | 1. It creates a message named msg using gettextf.
> | 2. Such object is then passed to stop(msg) or warning(msg) according to the following condition
> |
> | tolower(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_STOP_ON_INVALID_NUMERIC_VERSION_INPUTS_") != "false")
> |
> | However, I don't understand the previous code since the output of Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_STOP_ON_INVALID_NUMERIC_VERSION_INPUTS_") != "false" is just a boolean value and tolower() will just return "true" or "false". Maybe the intended code is tolower(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_STOP_ON_INVALID_NUMERIC_VERSION_INPUTS_")) != "false" ? Or am I missing something?
>
> Yes, agreed -- good catch.  In full, the code is (removing leading
> whitespace, and putting it back onto single lines)
>
>    msg <- gettextf("invalid non-character version specification 'x' (type: %s)", typeof(x))
>    if(tolower(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_STOP_ON_INVALID_NUMERIC_VERSION_INPUTS_") != "false"))
>        stop(msg, domain = NA)
>    else
>        warning(msg, domain = NA, immediate. = TRUE)
>
> where msg is constant (but reflecting language settings via standard i18n)
> and as you not the parentheses appear wrong.  What was intended is likely
>
>    msg <- gettextf("invalid non-character version specification 'x' (type: %s)", typeof(x))
>    if(tolower(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_STOP_ON_INVALID_NUMERIC_VERSION_INPUTS_")) != "false")
>        stop(msg, domain = NA)
>    else
>        warning(msg, domain = NA, immediate. = TRUE)
>
> If you use bugzilla before and have a handle, maybe file a bug report with
> this as patch at https://bugs.r-project.org/
>
> Dirk
>