[R] To run or not to run examples, CTFS package

[Liaw, Andy]

My $0.02...

> From: Pamela Hall
> 
> Hi again;
> 
> I have placed many examples in the CTFS Rd pages because my 
> audience really really likes lots of examples in order to 
> understand the options available in a functions.  At this 
> time I have set them all to \dontrun{}.  
> 
> however, this isn't because the example command line with its 
> function and options won't work, but rather that CTFS 
> specific datasets must exist to have the function output mean 
> anything (random number generation is not useful for 
> understanding the function output).  The CTFS datasets are 
> quite large...20-40 MB and for some functions many other 
> datasets need to be available.   The functions can also take 
> quite a bit of time to run in some cases, performing many simulations.
> 
> So, my questions are:
> 
> 1.  Does the R CMD check command actually run all of the 
> examples if \dontrun{} isn't in the Rd file?  And won't this 
> take a lot of time with real datasets?

Yes.  It might take a long time, depending on the specifics of your `real
data'.
 
> 2.  Should I consider making short versions of the datasets 
> for the use of \example{} ?  This is trivial in some cases, 
> but not in others as the function only makes sense on the 
> entire dataset.  however, in those cases it is, so far, with 
> some of the shorter datasets.

I would use the minimal amount of data that's sufficient to demonstrate
whatever points needed to be made in the example, and no more.
 
> 3.  Or can I just leave everything as \dontrun{} and if my 
> audience want to actually run a function, then can cut and 
> paste the line out of the man page or just type it in with 
> their versions of the correct datasets attached?

One other possibility is to create a package vignette...

Cheers,
Andy

 
> -ph
> 
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