[R-pkg-devel] Installing Tests with R Build

[Bill Denney]

Hi Joshua and Dirk,

> On Nov 23, 2017, at 10:17, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 23 November 2017 at 08:07, Joshua Ulrich wrote:
> | On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 4:21 PM, Bill Denney <bill at denney.ws> wrote:
> | > When running R BUILD now (via Travis CI), I get an error that the build failed trying to build the vignettes.  For R CMD install, I can add --install-tests.  Is there a way to control R BUILD so that the installation includes test installation?
> | >
> | Put the tests you want to install into a directory inside the inst/
> | directory (e.g. inst/tests/).
> 
> Which happens to be the default mode of operations with RUnit.
> 
> And it is a feature that I happen to _like_ a great deal because it permits
> testing of the _installed_ package which is something you need in real life
> when eg some of you system libraries may have change.

Putting the tests there seems like a very reasonable solution to the immediate issue.  It contravenes the options to install (or not install) tests ("R CMD INSTALL --install-tests" loses meaning).  I'm going to update the structure of my vignette so that it detects if the tests are there and builds the vignette based on the existence of the tests (making it say "Please install the tests following these instructions...").

I'm immediately ok with reworking the directory structure and tests, but I think it would be preferable long run to:
Have R CMD BUILD gain an --install-args option so that installation arguments can be controlled (for situations like this and I'm sure others).

Thank you (and Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating it),

Bill