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[R-pkg-devel] Establishing how a package violated CRAN policies

4 messages · Iris Simmons, Ben Bolker, Pepijn de Vries

Pepijn de Vries
# 
Hi fellow developers,

By accident I discovered that one of my packages has been archived by CRAN (https://cran.r-project.org/package=CopernicusMarine) because it violates CRAN policies. Can this happen unannounced? If so, how can I discover the specific violation, such that I can fix this, or at least avoid it in my other packages? If not, how could I get a copy of the announcement?

Any suggestions are welcome.

Kind regards,

Pepijn
Iris Simmons
# 
You can find those results here:

https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES.in

Your package says "Archived on 2024-12-16 from policy violation. On
Internet Access."

There are additional details from the check result that failed here:

https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/bdr/donttest/CopernicusMarine.out


On Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 17:34 Pepijn de Vries <pepijn.devries at outlook.com>
wrote:

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Ben Bolker
    

    

      
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You should have gotten an e-mail to the maintainer address -- check 
your spam folder?

   The error I see is in 
https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/bdr/donttest/CopernicusMarine.out (via 
the "donttest" link; the details of this test are here 
<https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/bdr/donttest/README.txt>, via 
<https://cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_issue_kinds.html>.

The policy <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html> that 
you're violating is probably this one:

* Packages which use Internet resources should fail gracefully with an 
informative message if the resource is not available or has changed (and 
not give a check warning nor error).

====

   I am always confused by "\donttest", which *is* tested by CRAN in 
some cases.

Finally, there is \donttest, used (at the beginning of a separate line) 
to mark code that should be run by example() but not by R CMD check (by 
default: the option --run-donttest can be used). This should be needed 
only occasionally but can be used for code which might fail in 
circumstances that are hard to test for, for example in some locales. 
(Use e.g. capabilities() or nzchar(Sys.which("someprogram")) to test for 
features needed in the examples wherever possible, and you can also use 
try() or tryCatch(). Use interactive() to condition examples which need 
someone to interact with.) Note that code included in \donttest must be 
correct R code, and any packages used should be declared in the 
DESCRIPTION file. It is good practice to include a comment in the 
\donttest section explaining why it is needed.


For what it's worth, the "additional issues" link seems to be broken:

https://cran-archive.r-project.org/web/checks/2024/check_issue_kinds.html

        
On 12/21/24 17:34, Pepijn de Vries wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Pepijn de Vries
    

    

      
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I did check my spam folder, nothing there. I suspect I'm somehow not receiving
all mails from the CRAN team.

            

      
      
      
    

        
Thanks for pointing this out. Yes this sounds familiar. I thought I had fixed this,
but the checks trip over an oversight on my behalf.

            

      
      
      
    

        
Examples wrapped in \donttest are examples that work fine as long as account details
are provided as option in the R session. As they are not available on CRAN, these
should not be tested there. This was not a problem when I first submitted this package.