[R-pkg-devel] In Description file, how far removed should the depends go?

You just need to list the packages that you explicitly depend on.
Most likely you should be using imports instead of "depends" but
that's a different issue.  It might seem like you're doing the user a
favor by making it explicit *all* the packages that will end up on
their system if your package is installed but what happens when a
package you use changes the packages that it depends on?  Are you
going to take the time to check n layers deep to make sure your
dependency list matches what should be on the users system?  If a
package you use drops one of the other packages that they used to
import in favor of a different package and you don't notice it then
you're going to end up installing a package on the user's system that
they don't actually need.

tldr: Just list the packages you explicitly need.

-Dason Kurkiewicz

On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 12:24 PM, Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal

[R-pkg-devel] In Description file, how far removed should the depends go?

Thread (4 messages)