[R-pkg-devel] Suggesting an archived package in the DESCRIPTION file

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 05/03/2024 8:02 a.m., Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> 
> On 5 March 2024 at 06:25, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> | You could make a compatible version of `survivalmodels` available on a
> | non-CRAN website, and refer to that website in the
> | Additional_repositories field of DESCRIPTION.
> 
> Every r-universe sub-site fits that requirement. For this package Google's
> first hit was https://raphaels1.r-universe.dev/survivalmodels and it carries
> the same line on install.packages() that Jeroen adds to every page:
> 
>   install.packages('survivalmodels', repos = c('https://raphaels1.r-universe.dev',
>                                                'https://cloud.r-project.org'))

I have mixed feelings about r-universe.  On the one hand, it is really 
nicely put together, and it offers the service described above.  On the 
other, it's probably a bad idea to follow its advice and use 
install.packages() with `repos` as shown:  that will install development 
versions of packages, not releases.

Do you know if it's possible for a package to suggest the CRAN version 
first, with an option like the above only offered as a pre-release option?

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> So doing all three of
> - adding a line 'Additional_repositories: https://raphaels1.r-universe.dev'
> - adding a 'Suggests: survivalmodels;
> - ensuring conditional use only as Suggests != Depends
> should do.
> 
> | It would be best if you fixed whatever issue caused survivalmodels to be
> | archived when you do this.
> |
> | Looking here:
> | https://cran-archive.r-project.org/web/checks/2024/2024-03-02_check_results_survivalmodels.html
> | that appears very easy to do.  The source is here:
> | https://github.com/RaphaelS1/survivalmodels/ .
> 
> The other may even take a PR fixing this going forward.
> 
> Dirk
>