[R-pkg-devel] Suggestion: improving checks during actual package submission

[Leo Mada]

Dear Duncan,

Unfortunately, I am not fully versed in the build project. I did use devtools::check.

Looking at the args, it seems that cran = TRUE is set by default:
args(devtools::check)
# function (pkg = ".", document = NULL, build_args = NULL, ...,
#    manual = FALSE, cran = TRUE, remote = FALSE, incoming = remote,
#    force_suggests = FALSE, run_dont_test = FALSE, args = "--timings",
#    env_vars = c(NOT_CRAN = "true"), quiet = FALSE, check_dir = NULL,
#    cleanup = deprecated(), vignettes = TRUE, error_on = c("never",
#        "error", "warning", "note"))

However, users may have older versions of R. So I wouldn't bet on the results which users get on their machines.

GitHub Check:
I have set up some scripts for automatic checking on the GitHub page of Rpdb (at the sugestion from this list). But they didn't catch the date error either (and I do not remember if I uploaded the 1st resubmitted version in order to detect the version issue). That was a quick-fix (though I did run the local devtools:check).

Sincerely,

Leonard

________________________________
From: Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2025 8:51 PM
To: Leo Mada <leo.mada using syonic.eu>; List r-package-devel <r-package-devel using r-project.org>
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Suggestion: improving checks during actual package submission

On 2025-09-16 11:58 a.m., Leo Mada via R-package-devel wrote:
> Dear CRAN Team,
>
> Please find below some ideas how to improve the checks during a package submission.
>
> I recently submitted a new version of package Rpbd, but made some trivial mistakes during the first 2 attempts. Both could have been easily caught during the actual submission process - before even running any tests.
>
> 1. Forgot to update date
> The user should be warned if date is older than 1 week (and raise error if date is older than ... whatever triggers the error).
>
> 2. Version with leading zeroes
> I resubmitted as version 2.4.01 - as it was just a minor update and was not aware of the generated error.
>
> Both fields can be easily checked when uploading the file with the package: the DESCRIPTION file is processed anyway. The user can easily correct these errors, avoiding unnecessary checks, including additional manual checks.

You shouldn't have been uploading the package unless you had already run
the checks locally (or on one of the several different available check
services).

After all, you did check the box saying "I have checked the submission
using R CMD check --as-cran and a current version of r-devel, as
mandated by the CRAN Repository Policy. (You could do so using the
win-builder service at https://win-builder.r-project.org)".

Duncan Murdoch

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