[R-pkg-devel] DESCRIPTION file corrections for accepted package

[Simon Urbanek]

> On 27 Oct 2024, at 23:03, Gianmarco Alberti <gianmarcoalberti using gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear R Package Developers,
> I am seeking guidance regarding a situation with my package 'chisquare'
> (version 1.1) on CRAN.
> 
> Current situation:
> 
> 1. The package was submitted and (automatically) accepted to CRAN (version
> 1.1) after thorough local testing and complete devtools checks
> (check_win_oldrelease(), check_win_release(), check_win_devel())
> 
> 2. After acceptance, I received a request to make formatting changes to the
> DESCRIPTION file by November 2, 2024:
> -Remove version specifications for graphics and stats in Imports
> -Update R version dependency format from R (>= 4.0.0) to R (>= 4.0)
> 
> 3. Upon attempting to submit these formatting changes, I received a warning
> about "Insufficient package version (submitted: 1.1, existing: 1.1)". I am
> well aware that this warning typically indicates the need to increment the
> version number for new submissions of existing packages, as per CRAN
> policies.
> 
> This creates a procedural challenge:
> -I need to make the requested DESCRIPTION file changes to retain the package
> -The changes are purely formatting-related, not functional (all checks pass)
> -I cannot submit without changing the version number
> -However, incrementing the version number seems disproportionate for
> formatting changes.
> 


But it is not. ANY change requires a version bump. You cannot have two files with different content yet the same version - the whole point of version is to uniquely identify content. Whether the change is just cosmetic or not is irrelevant (in your case it is actually functional so not even a question). As Rob Gentleman is fond of saying, version numbers are cheap ;). In your case I’d just use 1.1-1 (see semantic versioning which is highly recommended to follow)

Cheers,
Simon



> I would greatly appreciate guidance on the proper way to handle this
> situation.
> What is the recommended approach for submitting DESCRIPTION file formatting
> corrections for an already-accepted package, given that incrementing the
> version number might seem a bit disproportionate?
> 
> Thank you for your time and assistance.
> 
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> 
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