[R-pkg-devel] testing coercion

canCoerce(wv, "double") || getRversion() < "3.6.0"

 Hi,

A package I recently submitted to CRAN includes an S4 class that defines a
method to coerce from that class to a numeric vector, basically through

 setAs("myClass", "numeric", function(from) from at psi)

Being perhaps overly compulsive about trying to test everything while
documenting behavior, my accompanying test script includes these lines:

try( as.numeric(wv) )            # should fail
canCoerce(wv, "numeric")   # returns TRUE
canCoerce(wv, "double")     # gets a complaint from CRAN incoming pretest

The complaint on the last line arises because
+ in the current version of R, the answer is FALSE
+ in the development version of R, the answer is TRUE
The change is (probably) documented on the R-devel daily news from 04 Sept
2018, which lists

Bug Fix:  as(1L, "double") now does coerce (PR#17457)

So, here's my question. Do I remove this test (and thus lose my
documentation of how the method behaves) in order to get the incoming
precheck to stop whinging? Or do I tell the CRAN maintainers to not worry
about the test changing, since it's due to a core bug fix, and promise to
change my saved test results when the devel version becomes current? (Even
though the fixed results will then show up as wrong in the "oldrel" tests.)

Best,
  Kevin

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Hi Kevin,

I think using

canCoerce(wv, "double") || getRversion() < "3.6.0"

could solve the issue of an inconsistent test result and is descriptive.

Best regards,

      Sebastian


Am 06.12.18 um 16:59 schrieb Kevin Coombes:

  Hi,

A package I recently submitted to CRAN includes an S4 class that defines a
method to coerce from that class to a numeric vector, basically through

  setAs("myClass", "numeric", function(from) from at psi)

Being perhaps overly compulsive about trying to test everything while
documenting behavior, my accompanying test script includes these lines:

try( as.numeric(wv) )            # should fail
canCoerce(wv, "numeric")   # returns TRUE
canCoerce(wv, "double")     # gets a complaint from CRAN incoming pretest

The complaint on the last line arises because
+ in the current version of R, the answer is FALSE
+ in the development version of R, the answer is TRUE
The change is (probably) documented on the R-devel daily news from 04 Sept
2018, which lists

Bug Fix:  as(1L, "double") now does coerce (PR#17457)

So, here's my question. Do I remove this test (and thus lose my
documentation of how the method behaves) in order to get the incoming
precheck to stop whinging? Or do I tell the CRAN maintainers to not worry
about the test changing, since it's due to a core bug fix, and promise to
change my saved test results when the devel version becomes current? (Even
though the fixed results will then show up as wrong in the "oldrel" tests.)

Best,
   Kevin

     [[alternative HTML version deleted]]