Martin Maechler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I like the idea and will look into applying the patch > (note there's at least one typo which makes "make check" fail: > /priotiry/)
Great. Sorry for the typo, I've sent an update privately. > A propos: > > A while back (in last summer?), we (some of R-core) have > discussed about a new field to be added to DESCRIPTION, > and AFAIR, the only problem we had, is to find a name we > all liked. > Or was there more then the name alone, and some where convinced > that it is superfluous and hence too complicated. > > The idea was a field related to but weaker than 'Suggests' : > Something like > 'canMakeUseOf: <pkg1> [, <pkg2>, ... ] > which is *not* used in any QA/QC checking, but is purely > informative: If <pkg1> is require()able, then some examples may > look nicer, a function may provide another feature, etc, etc. > Alternatives to 'canMakeUseOf' would have been > 'isHappilyCoworkingWith' .... > > What do you (R-devel listeners) think about the idea? Some thoughts: * Beyond strict dependencies, it is useful for a package to be able to declare that it "can use" other packages to provide additional features _which may be platform specific_. * It is useful to be able to check the non-optional parts when non-essential packages are not available. In the case of platform specific optional features, this is essential. Otherwise it would be impossible to ever run check. * Package vignettes, used heavily in Bioconductor, often require a set of packages to be available to provide data and functions for a coherent example analysis. These extra packages are often not used directly by the package itself (neither dependency nor "can use"). A similar issue arises for examples included in package documentation. * It is useful to be able to check only those vignettes and examples where the required packages available. * If I were a new user/developer coming to R and read about Depends, Suggests, and CanMakeUseOf, I would likely be confused. With that in mind, I wonder if: Suggests could mean "can use" and a compromise of some sort be established w.r.t. to R CMD check (similar to --no-vignettes). Depends.examples (or similar) be added which lists dependencies for documentation examples and vignettes. Best Wishes, + seth ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
