[R-pkg-devel] Questions regarding a new (seperated package) and how to submit them to cran

Hi,

Thanks for the advice.

Still not 100% sure if that is okay to submit to CRAN.

As mentioned I have new packages that have others in the suggest (and yes the examples/tests run fine by making the dependent),

But if I have a package that is not yet on CRAN in the suggest I see that running winbuilder.

Suggests or Enhances not in mainstream repositories:
   dartR.sim

* checking package namespace information ... OK
* checking package dependencies ... NOTE
Package suggested but not available for checking: 'dartR.sim'

Can I explain when I submit that  dartR.sim will be there (as mentioned the examples run fine), but obviously is not yet on CRAN.

I assume the same would happen if I put the new packages in Enhances?

Regards, Bernd




From: Thierry Onkelinx <thierry.onkelinx at inbo.be>
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2023 5:51 PM
To: Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek at r-project.org>
Cc: Bernd.Gruber <Bernd.Gruber at canberra.edu.au>; r-package-devel at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] Questions regarding a new (seperated package) and how to submit them to cran

Dear Bernd,

You could contact the maintainer of the spatstat package. They did the same thing (splitting a large package into several smaller ones) a few years ago.

Having the base package suggesting an add-on and the add-on depending on or suggesting the base package might create an unwanted loop.

Best regards,

ir. Thierry Onkelinx
Statisticus / Statistician

Vlaamse Overheid / Government of Flanders
INSTITUUT VOOR NATUUR- EN BOSONDERZOEK / RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR NATURE AND FOREST
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Op vr 23 jun 2023 om 06:52 schreef Simon Urbanek <simon.urbanek at r-project.org<mailto:simon.urbanek at r-project.org>>:
Bernd,

the sequence in which you submit doesn't matter - the packages have to work regardless of the sequence. Suggests means that the dependency is optional, not that it can break tests. You have to skip the tests that cannot be run due to missing dependencies (see 1.1.3.1<http://1.1.3.1> in R-exts)

Cheers,
Simon

On Jun 23, 2023, at 2:35 PM, Bernd.Gruber <Bernd.Gruber at canberra.edu.au<mailto:Bernd.Gruber at canberra.edu.au>> wrote:

Hi,

I have a question regarding the separation of a package into smaller pieces (to avoid long testing/installation times and more important to avoid to many dependencies)

I am the maintainer of an R package (dartR) which has grown and is now at the limit in terms of testing/run time and also dependencies. To further develop the package we started to break the package into smaller packages namely


Two core packages (dartR.base and dartR.data) and here dartR.base has dartR.data in the depends. (dartR.base is 60% of the previous package) and dartR.data is our data.package for test data (dartR.data is already on CRAN)




Next to the two core packages we also have 3 more addon packages that deal with specialised analysis

dartR.sim
dartR.spatial
dartR.popgenomics.

Those packages depend on dartR.base and dartR.data.

All addon packages and core packages should have the other addon packages as suggests, hence here comes the question.


How do I submit the packages?  All of them at once? Or step by step.

If I submit step by step (e.g. dartR.base) it obviously cannot have the other dartR addon packages as suggests (cannot be tested and will break the CRAN tests).

So would be the correct way to:
Submit dartR.base (without dartR.sim, dartR.spatial and dartR.popgenomics in the suggest.)
Then submit dartR.sim, then dartR.spatial and finally dartR.popgenomics (all without suggests of the other packages)

And finally update all packages (only their description file and add the suggests once they are on CRAN).

Hope that makes sense and thanks in advance,

Bernd