Building Packages on Windows using .Rbuildignore (PR#7379)

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:39:17 +0000 (UTC), Gabor Grothendieck

: Even with this change, Rcmd check is still going to install the files
: it's supposed to ignore, because it uses Rcmd INSTALL, and there's no
: .Rbuildignore support there.
: 

If the behaviour is suddenly changed then this is going to cause work
for people whose scripts depend on the current behavior. 

Yes, that's normal.   If you work around a bug and the bug gets fixed,
then you will need to change your code.  That's why the NEWS file
reports bug fixes and other changes.

In order to
minimize disruption I would ask that such change only be made at the
same time that a flag for turning on and off .Rbuildignore processing
is implemented on build, check, install and build --binary.  

There's a simple workaround to turn .Rbuildignore processing off: just
rename the file.  Adding a switch is *not* a prerequisite for the
other changes.

Even
with such a flag it may require revision to scripts but at least
any change with the flag will be minimal.  Even better, it may
mean some scripts can be eliminated.

There are 3 changes that I would contemplate:

1.  Fix the bug that means "R CMD check" looks in the wrong place for
.Rbuildignore.

2.  Make "R CMD build --binary" consistent with "R CMD build" in its
handling of .Rbuildignore.

3.  Make "R CMD install" and "R CMD check" consistent with "R CMD
build" in their handling of .Rbuildignore.

Number 1 should definitely be fixed in the patches to 2.0.1.  I have a
feeling that both 2 and 3 should be done (and 2 would be an automatic
consequence of 3 unless we took action to stop it), but I'd put them
in 2.1.0, not 2.0.x.

Martin and you have also suggested 

4.  Add another flag to Rcmd build (and install and check?), to turn
.Rbuildignore processing on and off, for increased flexiblity or for
backward compatiblity.

My own feeling is that this doesn't increase flexibility enough, and
I'd like a better solution, but we've got lots of time before 2.1.0 is
released to discuss this.

Duncan Murdoch