[R-pkg-devel] Examples taking too long depend on object that takes a while to generate

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 15/09/2022 5:29 a.m., Martin Maechler wrote:
>>>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>>>>      on Thu, 15 Sep 2022 04:42:04 -0400 writes:
> 
>      > On 15/09/2022 3:45 a.m., Martin Maechler wrote:
>      >>>>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>      >>>>>>> on Wed, 14 Sep 2022 13:02:28 -0400 writes:
>      >>
>      >> > On 14/09/2022 12:43 p.m., Ivan Krylov wrote:
>      >> >> On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 12:31:49 -0400
>      >> >> Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com> wrote:
>      >> >>
>      >> >>> It's also possible to put .R files in the data directory, and they
>      >> >>> are executed to create the data object.  I think that happens at the
>      >> >>> time when you call data() rather than at install time, so it might
>      >> >>> not be helpful.
>      >> >>
>      >> >> Some time ago I was hoping to compress a package of mine by generating a
>      >> >> dataset during a data() call instead loading it from an .rda file, but
>      >> >> it turned out that the .R file is executed during R CMD build:
>      >> >> https://github.com/r-devel/r-svn/blob/03df313ad37456c6a62158328d4e373408ce4d59/src/library/tools/R/build.R#L794
>      >>
>      >> > Thanks for that info.  That's not good for John, because the
>      >> > architecture isn't known at build time.
>      >>
>      >> > Duncan Murdoch
>      >>
>      >> Sorry to muddy the water, but what *is* "build time"?
>      >> There's the big difference between building
>      >> 1) a  Source tarball                    and
>      >> 2) a  MacOS or Windows binary package
>      >>
>      >> Unfortunately, the two situations are very different notably in
>      >> this case, where '(2)' is really much closer to the
>      >> "install time" you mention.
>      >>
> 
>      > I meant building the tarball, and assumed that was what Ivan was talking
>      > about as well.
> 
>      > Duncan Murdoch
> 
> Ok, thank you, for the clarification.
> 
> Note that  `R CMD build --help`  mentions (among more)
> 
>    --resave-data=        re-save data files as compactly as possible:
>                          "no", "best", "gzip" (default)
>    --no-resave-data      same as --resave-data=no
> 
> so when building the package,
> Ivan should get what he wanted with
> 
>      R CMD build --no-resave-data  <pkg>
> 
> no ?

It's actually John Harrold who has the problem:  a dataset that he wants 
to use in examples that takes a long time to build, causing his examples 
to exceed the CRAN 5 second limit.

So what I was suggesting is that he should arrange for it to be created 
before running the example; the problem is that the dataset depends on 
the architecture of the machine that's running the example.  To follow 
my suggestion he would need to have the dataset created when the package 
was installed (or the binary was built).

Duncan Murdoch