[R-pkg-devel] how to specify to let a package only build 64bit on CRAN

[Jan Wijffels]

Duncan,

Thanks for the reply. Let me make this more clear.
The R package reticulate works on 32bit and 64bit. My golgotha package depends on reticulate and an extra Python package called torch which is not available for 32bit platforms. This is specified in the DESCRIPTION file at https://github.com/bnosac/golgotha/blob/master/DESCRIPTION#L17

For that reason R CMD check will fail on CRAN for 32bit. Hence my question. How do I specify this in the package such that I can distribute it on CRAN.

best,
Jan


Jan Wijffels
Statistician
www.bnosac.be  | +32 486 611708

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Monday 11 May 2020 14:39, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/05/2020 7:54 a.m., Jan Wijffels wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone,
> > I have a package which I would like to host on CRAN. The package is at https://github.com/bnosac/golgotha
> > The package only builds on 64bit however because the package uses R package reticulate which requires a python library called torch which does not build on 32 bit platforms.
> > So installation only works using INSTALL_opts = "--no-multiarch"
> > How do you specify this to the CRAN maintainers that this is the way it should be set up on CRAN such that it only is built for 64bit systems.
>
> I don't see how your package has any 32 bit dependence, since it has no
> src directory. It's probably sufficient to declare the dependency on
> reticulate, which indirectly implies the 32 bit dependence. But if
> reticulate works on 32 bit systems as long as users don't need "torch",
> then just state that.
>
> One thing I'd recommend: you should try to change the dependency from
> Depends to Imports. If there are a few reticulate functions that you
> want your users to have access to, you can import them and re-export
> them so they're available from your package as well.
>
> Duncan