R devel - Apr 2020 - Add a new environment variable switch for the 'large version' check

If you test a package with `R CMD check --as-cran` one of the
'incoming' checks is for a large version number, it gives a NOTE like
this

    * checking CRAN incoming feasibility ... NOTE
    Maintainer: ?Jim Hester <james.f.hester at gmail.com>?

    Version contains large components (0.0.0.9000)

This is a useful check when packages are submitted to CRAN because it
catches these large version components, which typically are reserved
for development versions of packages.

However when checking packages during development it is often expected
to have these large versions, so this note can be confusing for those
new to package development.

Currently the only way to turn off this particular check is to turn
off _all_ of the CRAN incoming checks.

The following patch (also attached) adds an environment variable that
can be used to disable just this check, which would allow users to
disable it if they expect to be using a large version. The default
behavior (and CRAN's usage) would remain unchanged.

diff --git a/src/library/tools/R/QC.R b/src/library/tools/R/QC.R
index 062722127a..64acd72c5e 100644
--- a/src/library/tools/R/QC.R
+++ b/src/library/tools/R/QC.R
@@ -6963,7 +6963,9 @@ function(dir, localOnly = FALSE)
     if(grepl("(^|[.-])0[0-9]+", ver))
         out$version_with_leading_zeroes <- ver
     unlisted_version <- unlist(package_version(ver))
-    if(any(unlisted_version >= 1234 & unlisted_version
!as.integer(format(Sys.Date(), "%Y"))))
+    if(any(unlisted_version >= 1234 & unlisted_version
!as.integer(format(Sys.Date(), "%Y"))) &&
+      
!config_val_to_logical(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_CRAN_INCOMING_SKIP_LARGE_VERSION_",
+                                         "FALSE")))
         out$version_with_large_components <- ver

     .aspell_package_description_for_CRAN <- function(dir, meta = NULL) {

Or you use a fourth component to signal a development version as Rcpp has
done for years (and, IIRC, for longer than devtools et al used '9000').

There is no functional difference between 1.2.3.1 and 1.2.3.9000. They are
both larger than 1.2.3 (in the package_version() sense) and signal an
intermediate version between 1.2.3 and 1.2.4.

But one requires a patch. ?\_(?)_/?.

Dirk

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org

I'd second Jim's feature request - it would be useful to be able to
disable this in CI and elsewhere.    The concept of using an "unusual"
version component such as a very large number does a nice job of
indicating "unusual" and serves as a blocker for submitting
work-in-progress to CRAN by mistake (hence the validation in 'R CMD
check').

Another point, which I don't think Jim made, is that this would make
it possible to run R CMD check --as-cran on your work-in-progress and
get all OKs.  This in turn would allow us to trigger a non-zero exit
status also for NOTEs (not just ERRORs and WARNINGs).  Currently, the
warning on -9000 is a false positive in this sense.  This will allow
developers to be more conservative without risking to treat NOTEs as
something to expect as normal.  CI services are typically configured
to alert the developer on ERRORs and WARNINGs but, AFAIK, not on
NOTEs.

On the topic of unusual version numbers: I'd like to suggest that
CRAN(*) makes an unusual version bump whenever they orphan a package,
e.g. to suffix -00001. CRAN already updates/modifies the package
tarball for orphaned packages by setting 'Maintainer: ORPHANED' in the
DESCRIPTION file. By also bumping the version of orphaned packages it
would it stand out in sessionInfo(), which helps in troubleshooting
and bug reports, etc.  But more importantly, the most recent stable
CRAN release remain untouched, which I think has a value by itself for
scientific purposes.

/Henrik

(*) Yes, I should email CRAN about this, but I think it's worth
vetting it here first.

On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 7:44 AM Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org>
wrote:
>
>
> Or you use a fourth component to signal a development version as Rcpp has
> done for years (and, IIRC, for longer than devtools et al used
'9000').
>
> There is no functional difference between 1.2.3.1 and 1.2.3.9000. They are
> both larger than 1.2.3 (in the package_version() sense) and signal an
> intermediate version between 1.2.3 and 1.2.4.
>
> But one requires a patch. ?\_(?)_/?.
>
> Dirk
>
> --
> http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
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