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

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 5 March 2024 at 13:28, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
| What I'm seeing is that the tags are ignored, and it is distributing the 
| HEAD of the main branch.  I don't think most users should be using that 
| version:  in my packages it won't have had full reverse dependency 
| checks, I only do that before CRAN releases.  And occasionally it hasn't 
| even passed R CMD check, though that's not my normal workflow.  On the 
| other hand, I like that it's available and easy to install, it just 
| shouldn't be the default install.

The default behaviour is to build after every commit to the main branch.  But
there are options. On the repo I mentioned we use

    "branch": "*release",

and now builds occur on tagged releases only. The above is AFAIUI a meta
declaration understood by `remotes`, it was an option suggested by a
colleague.  Naming actual branches also works.
 
| I suppose I could do all development on a "devel" branch, and only merge 
| it into the main branch after I wanted to make a release, but then the 
| R-universe instructions would be no good for getting the devel code.

It is under your control. You could document how to install via `remotes`
from that branch.  As so often, it's about trading one thing off for another.

| I don't know anything about dpkg, but having some options available to 
| package authors would be a good thing.

Yes but you know {install,available}.packages and have some understanding of
how R identifies and installs packages. I merely illustrated a different use
pattern of giving "weights" to repos. If "we all" want different behaviour,
someone has to site down and write it. Discussing some possible specs and
desired behavior may help. 

Dirk

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