[R-pkg-devel] url checks not working for me

[Vincent van Hees]

Hello,
URL errors in my DESCRIPTION file and package vignette are not picked up
when I do R CMD check --as-cran or devtools::check(). I only know about
these errors because CRAN has rejected my package submission and instructed
me to fix the urls (example at end of this message).

I am trying to figure out how I can get R CMD check --as-cran to detect
these URL mistakes. From
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/URL_checks.html I understand that I
need libcurl installed, which I have.

Can anyone tell me whether I am using the wrong combination of libcurl
version, R version, and Ubuntu version? (see versions below). If not, what
else can I do to get the URL checks to work?

Thanks, Vincent

vincent using vincent-VB:~$ curl-config --version
*libcurl 7.58.0*

vincent using vincent-VB:~$ curl -V
*curl 7.58.0* (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.58.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1
zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.4 libpsl/0.19.1 (+libidn2/2.0.4) nghttp2/1.30.0
librtmp/2.3
Release-Date: 2018-01-24
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3
pop3s rtmp rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: AsynchDNS IDN IPv6 Largefile GSS-API Kerberos SPNEGO NTLM NTLM_WB
SSL libz TLS-SRP HTTP2 UnixSockets HTTPS-proxy PSL

vincent using vincent-VB:~$ R --version
*R version 4.0.2* (2020-06-22) -- "Taking Off Again"
Copyright (C) 2020 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License versions 2 or 3.
For more information about these matters see
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

vincent using vincent-VB:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: *Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS*
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

Example of most recent URL mistakes in my package detected by CRAN package
submission process which I could not detect locally:
Found the following (possibly) invalid URLs: URL:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142533
(moved to
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142533)
From: inst/CITATION Status: 200 Message: OK URL: https://geneactiv.org/
(moved to https://www.activinsights.com/) From: inst/doc/GGIR.html Status:
200 Message: OK URL: https://www.accelting.com/ (moved to
https://accelting.com/) From: inst/doc/GGIR.html Status: 200 Message: OK
URL: https://www.physiology.org/doi/10.1152/japplphysiol.00421.2014 (moved
to https://journals.physiology.org/doi/10.1152/japplphysiol.00421.2014)
From: inst/CITATION Status: 200 Message: OK

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