R devel - Oct 2022 - tools:: extracting pkg dependencies from DCF

Hello Jan,

I have seen many packages that implemented dependencies "extraction"
on
their own for internal purposes and today I was doing exactly that for
mine. It's not a big deal using read.dcf on DESCRIPTION. It was sufficient
for me, but I had to take care of some \n chars (the overall returned value
has some rough edges, in my opinion). However, the function from the branch
seems to not care about version requirements, which are crucial for me.
Maybe that is something to reconsider before merging.

Best,
Jan

p? 14. 10. 2022 v 2:27 odes?latel Jan Gorecki <j.gorecki at wit.edu.pl>
napsal:
> Dear R devs,
>
> I would like to raise a request for a simple helper function.
> Utility function to extract package dependencies from DESCRIPTION file.
>
> I do think that tools package is better place, for such a fundamental
> functionality, than community packages.
>
> tools pkg seems perfect fit (having already great function write_PACKAGES).
>
> Functionality I am asking for is already in R svn repository since 2016, in
> a branch tools4pkgs. Function is called 'packages.dcf'.
> Another one 'repos.dcf' would be a good functional complementary to
it.
>
> Those two simple helper functions really makes it easier for organizations
> to glue together usage of their own R packages repos and CRAN repo in a
> smooth way. That could possibly help to offload CRAN from new submissions.
>
> gh mirror link for easy preview:
>
>
https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/tools4pkgs/src/library/tools/R/packages.R#L419
>
> Regards
> Jan Gorecki
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Hello Jan,

Thanks for confirming about many packages reinventing this missing
functionality.
packages.dcf was not meant handle versions. It just extracts names of
dependencies... Yes, such a simple thing, yet missing in base R.

Versions of packages can be controlled when setting up R pkgs repo. This is
how I used to handle it. Making a CRAN subset mirror of fixed version pkgs.
BTW. function for that is also included in mentioned branch. I am just not
proposing it, to increase the chance of having at least this simple,
missing, functionality merged.

Best
Jan

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 15:14 Jan Net?k <netikja at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Jan,
>
> I have seen many packages that implemented dependencies
"extraction" on
> their own for internal purposes and today I was doing exactly that for
> mine. It's not a big deal using read.dcf on DESCRIPTION. It was
sufficient
> for me, but I had to take care of some \n chars (the overall returned value
> has some rough edges, in my opinion). However, the function from the branch
> seems to not care about version requirements, which are crucial for me.
> Maybe that is something to reconsider before merging.
>
> Best,
> Jan
>
> p? 14. 10. 2022 v 2:27 odes?latel Jan Gorecki <j.gorecki at
wit.edu.pl>
> napsal:
>
>> Dear R devs,
>>
>> I would like to raise a request for a simple helper function.
>> Utility function to extract package dependencies from DESCRIPTION file.
>>
>> I do think that tools package is better place, for such a fundamental
>> functionality, than community packages.
>>
>> tools pkg seems perfect fit (having already great function
>> write_PACKAGES).
>>
>> Functionality I am asking for is already in R svn repository since
2016,
>> in
>> a branch tools4pkgs. Function is called 'packages.dcf'.
>> Another one 'repos.dcf' would be a good functional
complementary to it.
>>
>> Those two simple helper functions really makes it easier for
organizations
>> to glue together usage of their own R packages repos and CRAN repo in a
>> smooth way. That could possibly help to offload CRAN from new
submissions.
>>
>> gh mirror link for easy preview:
>>
>>
https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/tools4pkgs/src/library/tools/R/packages.R#L419
>>
>> Regards
>> Jan Gorecki
>>
>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]