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

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 25 February 2018 at 14:20, meik michalke wrote:
| Am Sonntag, 25. Februar 2018, 06:35:52 CET schrieb Dirk Eddelbuettel:
| > On 25 February 2018 at 11:51, meik michalke wrote:
| > | 'Additional_repositories' is meant for R package repositories, it won't
| > | work  with source code git repos. if a package is in 'Suggests' and can't
| > | be found
| > You missed the part where we create packages ("R CMD build") out of source
| > repos, and then place those packages in package repos.  That is what drat is
| > for.
| 
| maybe you missed the part where the OP tried to use
| https://github.com/waddella/loon in 'Additional_repositories'? AFAIK you can't 
| use a simple git source code repository of a package.

It this really so hard?  I have been suggesting, in vain, to _create a
tarball_ and insert said tarball into a package repository precisely because
OP is stuck.

You are not helping by reiterating the OPs position three times over.
 
| do you mean that a dependency is automatically fetched and installed from an 
| *alternative* repo configured via 'Additional_repositories'? i didn't get that 

Yes. We used that for years via drat. And again, no magic.

R tools essentially do that automagically (if dependencies in visible repos
you declared in your session, obviously -- no magic lamps or powder
dust). The dependencies get resolved.  CRAN is no different if you consider
how eg BioConductor gets resolved automagically (and again, see the R Journal
paper for long details if you need them).  Works for source or data packages,
the latter is discussed there.

Dirk

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org