[R-pkg-devel] Installed package size
On Thu, 12 Mar 2020 15:16:13 +0000
Carsten Croonenbroeck <carsten.croonenbroeck at uni-rostock.de> wrote:
I would like to know what's the maximum size and if there's a way around that limit.
Here's what CRAN policy [*] says about that:
As a general rule, neither data nor documentation should exceed 5MB (which covers several books). A CRAN package is not an appropriate way to distribute course notes, and authors will be asked to trim their documentation to a maximum of 5MB.
(According to src/library/tools/R/check.R, 5MB seems to be the limit on installed size, not compressed tarball size.)
Where a large amount of data is required (even after compression), consideration should be given to a separate data-only package which can be updated only rarely (since older versions of packages are archived in perpetuity).
If publishing the data separately from the code is acceptable, you could use drat [**] to set up a repository for the data package somewhere else, then list the data package in Suggests: and the repo in Additional_repositories: in the DESCRIPTION of the code package, which you could submit to CRAN.