[R-pkg-devel] Etiquette for package submissions that do not automatically pass checks?

[Cesko Voeten]

A while ago, I submitted an update to my package 'buildmer' that does not pass R CMD check. This is deliberate. The package contains functionality to run on cluster nodes that were set up by the user and needs to access its own internal functions from there. In previous versions of the package, I had maintained a list of those functions and clusterExport()ed them, but that had the side effect of overwriting any same-named user objects on the user-provided cluster nodes, which I thought was poor form. The update therefore accesses these functions using ':::', which triggers a check warning.

I thought the etiquette was to explain this in the 'Comments' box when submitting, but this gave me the same automated message that the package does not pass checks and that I should fix it or reply-all and explain. This led me to believe that I should not have used the 'Comments' box for this purpose, hence I resubmitted the package leaving the comments box empty, and I replied-all to the subsequent e-mail I got with an explanation similar to the above.

It has now been a while since I sent that e-mail (ten days), and I have yet to hear back. I was wondering if the message had gotten lost, if they simply haven't gotten around to it yet (I have no idea how much mail they receive on a daily basis, but I'd think it's a lot more than I do), or if I should have handled this differently. Only CRAN can answer the first two questions, but before I bother them: was this the correct procedure, or should I simply have done something differently?

Thanks,
Cesko