R devel - Apr 2025 - WRE Date field & CRAN

Hi,

On Writing R Extensions there is a footnote [6] about the "Date" field
on
the DESCRIPTION file being required by CRAN:

"required by CRAN, so checked by R CMD check --as-cran"

I think this is no longer up to date, as I've seen packages published on
CRAN without it.
This might be because now the Packaged date is checked too (around
src/tools/R/QC.R line 7998).

Best,

Llu?s


[6]: https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-devel/R-exts.html#FOOT6

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

On 2025-04-06 10:55 a.m., Llu?s Revilla wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Writing R Extensions there is a footnote [6] about the "Date"
field on
> the DESCRIPTION file being required by CRAN:
> 
> "required by CRAN, so checked by R CMD check --as-cran"
> 
> I think this is no longer up to date, as I've seen packages published
on
> CRAN without it.
> This might be because now the Packaged date is checked too (around
> src/tools/R/QC.R line 7998).
I believe the text says Date is optional, but if present, the format is 
checked by CRAN.  So a missing date isn't evidence of an issue, but 
using a non-standard format would be.

I just did a check, and got this NOTE:

The Date field is not in ISO 8601 yyyy-mm-dd format.

So I think the docs are correct.

Duncan Murdoch