Dear list, I'm considering submitting a package to CRAN. The package would be a 'foyer' or API to a much larger package (>1GB tarball) containing geographical data that the 'foyer' package would use to perform tasks like geocoding. The foyer package would be usable, though quite limited, as a standalone package, and I can technically pass an R CMD check by placing the 1 GB package in Suggests and using an Additional_repository, but it takes a long time to retrieve and install from the Additional_repository. While I believe the downside of long install times would be acceptable for end-users (who would only need to install the package once a year), for CRAN it could occupy a large part of the check farm and have to occur much more frequently.
The package once installed makes good use of lazy loading; in particular, it would be basically unusable if the CRAN package had to connect and download the necessary pieces from the large package each time it was required. I thought about breaking up the package into lots of little packages; however, even though the package is not strictly atomic, its indivisible elements would still be too large for CRAN. My questions are: would this 'foyer' package be acceptable to CRAN? and, if so, what can I do so that the foyer package doesn't eat up CRAN's computing resources (either on submission or once accepted) when checking Suggests: Best, Hugh. ______________________________________________ R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
