[R-pkgs] Devtools 0.7

[Hadley Wickham]

# devtools

The aim of `devtools` is to make your life as a package developer
easier by providing R functions that simplify many common tasks.
Devtools is opinionated about how to do package development, and
requires that you use `roxygen2` for documentation and `testthat` for
testing. Future version will relax these opinions - patches are
welcome! You can track (and contribute to) development of `devtools`
at https://github.com/hadley/devtools.

For discussion related to package development with devtools see the
[rdevtools](http://groups.google.com/group/rdevtools) mailing list.

devtools 0.7
------------

INSTALLATION

* `install_bitbucket` installs R packages on bitbucket.

* `install` now uses `--with-keep.source` to make debugging a little easier.

* All remote install functions give better error messages in the case of http
  errors (Fixes #82).

* `install` has new quick option to make package installation faster, by
  sacrificing documentation, demos and multi-architecture binaries. (Fixes
  #77)

* `install_url`, `install_github` and `install_gitorious` gain a subdir
  argument which makes it possible to install packages that are contained
  within a sub-directory of a repository or compressed file. (Fixes #64)

CHECKING

* `with_debug` function temporarily sets env vars so that compilation is
  performed with the appropriate debugging flags set. Contributed by Andrew
  Redd.

* `revdep`, `revdep_maintainers` and `revdep_check` for calculating reverse
  dependencies, finding their maintainers and running `R CMD check`.
  (Fixes #78)

* `check_cran` has received a massive overhaul: it now checks multiple
  packages, installs dependencies (in user specified library), and parses check
  output to extract errors and warnings

* `check` uses new `--as-cran` option to make checking as close to CRAN as
  possible (fixes #68)

OTHER NEW FEATURES

* devtools now uses options `devtools.path` to set the default path to use
  with devmode, and `github.user` to set the default user when installing
  packages from github.

* if no package supplied, and no package has been worked with previously, all
  functions now will try the working directory. (Fixes #87)

* on windows, devtools now looks in the registry to find where Rtools is
  installed, and does a better a job of locating gcc. (Contributed by Andrew
  Redd)

* `show_rd` passes `...` on to `Rd2txt` - this is useful if you're checking
  how build time `\Sexpr`s are generated.

* A suite of `with` functions that allow you to temporarily alter the
  environment in which code is run: `in_dir`, `with_collate`, `with_locale`,
  `with_options`, `with_path`, ... (Fixes #89)

* `release` ask more questions and randomises correct answers so you really
  need to read them (Fixes #79)

* `source_gist` now accepts default url such as "https://gist.github.com/nnn"

* New system path manipulation functions, `get_path`, `set_path`, `add_path`
  and `on_path`, contributed by Andrew Redd.

* If you're on windows, `devtools` now suppresses the unimportant warning from
  CYGWIN about the dos style file paths

BUG FIXES

* `decompress` now uses target directory as defined in the function call
  when expanding a compressed file. (Fixes #84)

* `document` is always run in a C locale so that `NAMESPACE` sort order is
  consistent across platforms.

* `install` now quotes `libpath` and build path so paths with embedded spaces
  work (Fixes #73 and #76)

* `load_data` now also loads `.RData` files (Fixes #81)

* `install` now has `args` argument to pass additional command line arguments
  on to `R CMD install` (replaces `...` which didn't actually do anything).
  (Fixes #69)

* `load_code` does a better job of reconciling files in DESCRIPTION collate
  with files that actually exist in the R directory. (Fixes #14)


-- 
Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair
Department of Statistics / Rice University
http://had.co.nz/