[R-pkg-devel] Suppressing long-running vignette code in CRAN submission

[John Fox]

Dear John,

Unless I'm mistaken, the *installation* time of the package isn't really 
at issue. If a user installs a package from a tarball provided by CRAN, 
the vignettes aren't normally rebuilt.

Best,
  John

On 2023-10-17 6:30 p.m., John Harrold wrote:
> Caution: External email.
> 
> 
> I ask myself the question: Who is the vignette for?  It does server two
> purposes. One is testing but primarily it's for the users to learn how to
> use a package. I think the testing is secondary, and if it slows down
> installation or general usability I'd sacrifice the testing. If it's that
> important, then the tests can be added explicitly in tests/.
> 
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 3:04 PM Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>> On 18 October 2023 at 08:51, Simon Urbanek wrote:
>> | John,
>> |
>> | the short answer is it won't work (it defeats the purpose of vignettes).
>>
>> Not exactly. Everything is under our (i.e. package author) control, and
>> when
>> we want to replace 'computed' values with cached values we can.
>>
>> All this is somewhat of a charade. "Of course" we want vignettes to run
>> tests. But then we don't want to fall over random missing .sty files or
>> fonts
>> (macOS machines have been less forgiving than others), not to mention
>> compile
>> time.
>>
>> So for simplicity I often pre-make pdf vignettes that get included in other
>> latex code as source. Works great, never fails, CRAN never complained --
>> which is somewhat contrary to your statement.
>>
>> It is effectively the same with tests. We all want maximum test surfaces.
>> But
>> when tests fail, or when they run too long, or [insert many other reasons
>> here] so many packages run tests conditionally.  Such is life.
>>
>> Dirk
>>
>>
>> | However, this sounds like a purely hypothetical question - CRAN policies
>> allow long-running vignettes if they declared.
>> |
>> | Cheers,
>> | Simon
>> |
>> |
>> | > On 18/10/2023, at 3:02 AM, John Fox <jfox using mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>> | >
>> | > Hello Dirk,
>> | >
>> | > Thank you (and Kevin and John) for addressing my questions.
>> | >
>> | > No one directly answered my first question, however, which was whether
>> the approach that I suggested would work. I guess that the implication is
>> that it won't, but it would be nice to confirm that before I try something
>> else, specifically using R.rsp.
>> | >
>> | > Best,
>> | > John
>> | >
>> | > On 2023-10-17 4:02 a.m., Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
>> | >> Caution: External email.
>> | >> On 16 October 2023 at 10:42, Kevin R Coombes wrote:
>> | >> | Produce a PDF file yourself, then use the "as.is" feature of the
>> R.rsp
>> | >> | package.
>> | >> For completeness, that approach also works directly with Sweave.
>> Described in
>> | >> a blog post by Mark van der Loo in 2019, and used in a number of
>> packages
>> | >> including a few of mine.
>> | >> That said, I also used the approach described by John Harrold and
>> cached
>> | >> results myself.
>> | >> Dirk
>> | >> --
>> | >> dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org
>> | >> ______________________________________________
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>> --
>> dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org
>>
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