[R-pkg-devel] How to (conditionally) use an archived package (without Suggests)?

[Marius Hofert]

Hi,

A package 'foo' uses a package 'bar' (in Imports). 'bar' has been
archived and the maintainer of 'foo' was asked to fix the dependency
on 'bar' according to WRE 1.1.3.1.

Working with 'bar::' everywhere (and requireNamespace("bar", quietly =
TRUE)), as well as moving 'bar' from Imports to Suggests seems to work
but is not accepted on submission. Removing 'bar' also from Suggests
leads to

'::' or ':::' import not declared from: ‘bar’
'loadNamespace' or 'requireNamespace' call not declared from: ‘bar’

Does this mean it is not possible to use 'bar' anymore in 'foo'?

These are (somewhat) related references I found:
1) https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html#Suggested-packages
2) https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2013-February/065947.html

Thanks & cheers,
Marius