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

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 05/03/2024 2:26 p.m., Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> 
> 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",

Where do you put that?  I don't see r2u on R-universe, so I guess you're 
talking about a different repo; which one?

> 
> 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 do that, but my documentation falls off the bottom of the screen, and 
the automatic docs generated by R-universe are at the top.

Duncan

> 
> | 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
>