[R-pkg-devel] Suggests with non-CRAN packages

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 10 January 2024 at 16:25, Uwe Ligges wrote:
| 
| 
| On 10.01.2024 15:35, Josiah Parry wrote:
| > Thanks, all. As it goes, the package submission failed. The package that 
| > is suggested is available at https://r.esri.com/bin/ 
| > <https://r.esri.com/bin/> and as such provided `https://r.esri.com 
| > <https://r.esri.com>` as the url in `Additional_repositories`.
| 
| There is no
| 
| https://r.esri.com/src
| 
| hence it is obviously not a standard repository.

And how to set one up is described very patiently over ten pages in

   Hosting Data Packages via drat: A Case Study with Hurricane Exposure Data

at

   https://journal.r-project.org/archive/2017/RJ-2017-026/index.html

which does

   Abstract Data-only packages offer a way to provide extended functionality
   for other R users. However, such packages can be large enough to exceed
   the package size limit (5 megabytes) for the Comprehen sive R Archive
   Network (CRAN). As an alternative, large data packages can be posted to
   additional repostiories beyond CRAN itself in a way that allows smaller
   code packages on CRAN to access and use the data. The drat package
   facilitates creation and use of such alternative repositories and makes it
   particularly simple to host them via GitHub. CRAN packages can draw on
   packages posted to drat repositories through the use of the
   ‘Additonal_repositories’ field in the DESCRIPTION file. This paper
   describes how R users can create a suite of coordinated packages, in which
   larger data packages are hosted in an alternative repository created with
   drat, while a smaller code package that interacts with this data is
   created that can be submitted to CRAN.

for the use case of a 'too large for CRAN' suggested data package

| > The request was to remove the additional repositories and provide 
| > instructions for package installation in the Description field. This 
| > package, arcgisbinding, is used in one line of the entire package 
| > https://github.com/R-ArcGIS/arcgisutils/blob/64093dc1a42fa28010cd45bb6ae8b8c57835cb40/R/arc-auth.R#L123 <https://github.com/R-ArcGIS/arcgisutils/blob/64093dc1a42fa28010cd45bb6ae8b8c57835cb40/R/arc-auth.R#L123> to extract an authorization token. It is provided for compatibility with a semi-closed-source R package. The installation instructions for which are....lengthy (https://r.esri.com/r-bridge-site/arcgisbinding/installing-arcgisbinding.html <https://r.esri.com/r-bridge-site/arcgisbinding/installing-arcgisbinding.html>) and /only /available as a windows binary. Providing an explicit call out for installation in the "Description" field of the DESCRIPTION feels like it is co-opting the Description to describe the installation process for a function that I anticipate /very few /people to use.
| 
| So you can either remove the need for that package or say something like 
| ".... and if an authorization token is to be extracted on Windows, the 
| 'arcgisbinding' package is needed that can be installed as explained at 
| <https://r.esri.com>."

Additional_repositories is great, and you have 134 examples at CRAN:

> D <- data.table(tools::CRAN_package_db())
> D[is.na(Additional_repositories)==FALSE, .(Package, Additional_repositories)]
                  Package                                                Additional_repositories
                   <char>                                                                 <char>
  1:            archiDART                                      https://archidart.github.io/drat/
  2:           aroma.core https://henrikbengtsson.r-universe.dev,\nhttps://r-forge.r-project.org
  3:             asteRisk                                   https://rafael-ayala.github.io/drat/
  4:            BayesfMRI                             https://inla.r-inla-download.org/R/testing
  5:                bigDM                              https://inla.r-inla-download.org/R/stable
 ---                                                                                            
130:    TreatmentPatterns                                           https://ohdsi.github.io/drat
131:             TreeDist                                      https://ms609.github.io/packages/
132:         triplesmatch                                        https://errickson.net/rrelaxiv/
133: USA.state.boundaries                                         https://iembry.gitlab.io/drat/
134:                  voi                             https://inla.r-inla-download.org/R/stable/
>

Dirk

-- 
dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org