[R-pkg-devel] No news entries found

[Henrik Bengtsson]

)There's been recent updates in R-devel
(https://github.com/wch/r-source/commit/baf375d8b65414daebf85e226a1e5103a93ab138
that do more validation of the syntax/format in NEWS and NEWS.md
files. This was done to make sure news() works in more cases (e.g. it
may return just NULL if the NEWS.md file is not formatted as the tool
expect).  I guess it will also help render NEWS/NEWS.md files on the
CRAN package pages.

If you run,

news(package = "RALSA")

and see the NEWS entries, then the format should be correct, otherwise
not.  You can use:

news <- tools:::.build_news_db_from_package_NEWS_md("NEWS.md")
if (is.null(news)) stop("Syntax error in NEWS.md")

to troubleshoot.  If you get an error, i.e. 'news' is NULL, then you
need to fix up your NEWS.md file.  I don't think the format is
documented yet, so you might have to do some trial error to figure it
out.  Although it's not an official format, if you follow
https://pkgdown.r-lib.org/reference/build_news.html, it typically
works.  When I did it some weeks ago, I started with a minimal
NEWS.md, e.g. the top version, and then I added the other entries back
to find which ones were problematic.  See
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HenrikBengtsson/progressr/0.10.1/NEWS.md
for an example that works on CRAN
(https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/progressr/news/news.html) and
with news(package = "progressr").

Hope this helps,

Henrik

On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 11:37 PM Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 07/07/2022 3:55 p.m., Plamen Mirazchiyski wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Today I have submitted a new version of the RALSA package. Soon after I
> > received an automatic email letting me know that the package did not
> > pass some of the pre-tests:
>
> It would be helpful to let us know where to see the troublesome NEWS.md
> file.  Maybe a small change in formatting is causing these false positives.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>
> >
> >> package RALSA_1.3.0.tar.gz does not pass the incoming checks automatically, please see the following pre-tests:
> >> Windows:<https://win-builder.r-project.org/incoming_pretest/RALSA_1.3.0_20220707_190307/Windows/00check.log>
> >> Status: 2 NOTEs
> >> Debian:<https://win-builder.r-project.org/incoming_pretest/RALSA_1.3.0_20220707_190307/Debian/00check.log>
> >> Status: 1 NOTE
> >>
> >> Last released version's CRAN status: OK: 9, NOTE: 4
> >> See:<https://CRAN.R-project.org/web/checks/check_results_RALSA.html>
> >
> > To summarize:
> >
> > 1. Windows checks found possibly invalid DOIs. This is to be ignored, as
> > stated here:
> > https://www.mail-archive.com/r-package-devel@r-project.org/msg07116.html
> >
> > 2. Windows, Debian (gcc) and Fedora (clang and gcc) drop the following note:
> >
> > checking package subdirectories ... NOTE
> > Problems with news in 'NEWS.md':
> > No news entries found.
> >
> > This is rather strange because I have added one of the largest news
> > updates I ever made for this package in the NEWS.md file with this
> > submission. Further, this note appears only in these four of the 13
> > platforms where the package is checked.
> >
> > Apparently, this is beyond my control and I can do nothing to fix it on
> > my end. I have already replied to the email to notify the
> > CRAN-submissions using R-project.org this is a false-positive as advised in
> > the email itself, but I thought the mailing list should also be aware of
> > this issue.
> >
> > Best,
> > Plamen
> >
>
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