[R-pkg-devel] Error in CHECK caused by dev.off()

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 23/07/2020 5:11 p.m., Helmut Schütz wrote:
> Hi Dirk,
> 
> Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote on 2020-07-23 15:16:
>> Helmut,
>>
>> For previous uploads you affirmed that you read the CRAN Repository Policy
>> which states
>>
>>        [...]
>>
>> Your package appears to violate that requirement.
> 
> As I wrote previously the statement continues with
> "Limited exceptions may be allowed in interactive sessions if the
> package obtains confirmation from the user."
> 
> I'm not a native speaker of English but for me "should not write" !=
> "must not write".

And "may be allowed" is not "will be allowed".

> 
>>    I would fix the package.
> 
> I removed the automatic switch to "~/" if no path is given. As before I
> recommend in the man-pages to give the full path. However, I _still_
> state that "~/" _can_ be used for convenience.

This is a little unclear (perhaps the language issue again).  It's fine 
if your documentation recommends the user choose that.  That's a 
variation on what I recommended to you (that you generate an error 
message that suggests how to avoid the error).

I don't agree with it if you mean to say the CRAN policy gets it wrong, 
and you should be allowed to have your original automatic fallback.

> The package is used in a regulated environment. The output file contains
> an entire audit-trail (name of the user and system, version and date of
> the OS, R, all packages, functions used, time of execution, blablah). If
> the package would write to tempdir() I would have to add a warning in
> bold font of every man-page like "Execute the command tempdir() to find
> out where your result files reside. Copy the files to a safe location
> before you quit the R-session. If you fail to do so, your results will
> be lost."
> 
> Off topic: I don't like it that on Windows tempdir is located at
> "C:/Users/{Username}/AppData/Local/Temp/Rtmp..." I strictly separate my
> OSes (on C), software (on D), data (on E), backups (on F). Writing to
> the system disk is not what I prefer. However, in my installation "~/"
> resolves to "E:/Users/{Username}/Documents/"...

It can resolve anywhere you like (as long as its writable), by 
specifying the TMPDIR environment variable.

Duncan Murdoch