R devel - Apr 2024 - R 4.4.0 has version of Matrix 1.7-0, but it's not available on CRAN

On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 12:32:59 +0200
Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
> Finally, I'd think it definitely would be nice for
> install.packages("Matrix") to automatically get the correct
> Matrix version from CRAN ... so we (R-core) would be grateful
> for a patch to install.packages() to achieve this
Since the binaries offered on CRAN are already of the correct version
(1.7-0 for -release and -devel), only source package installation needs
to concern itself with the Recommended subdirectory.

Would it be possible to generate the PACKAGES* index files in the
4.4.0/Recommended subdirectory? Then on the R side it would be needed
to add a new repo (adjusting chooseCRANmirror() to set it together with
repos["CRAN"]) and keep the rest of the machinery intact.

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan

On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 1:06?PM Ivan Krylov <ikrylov at disroot.org>
wrote:
>
> On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 12:32:59 +0200
> Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>
> > Finally, I'd think it definitely would be nice for
> > install.packages("Matrix") to automatically get the correct
> > Matrix version from CRAN ... so we (R-core) would be grateful
> > for a patch to install.packages() to achieve this
>
> Since the binaries offered on CRAN are already of the correct version
> (1.7-0 for -release and -devel), only source package installation needs
> to concern itself with the Recommended subdirectory.
>
> Would it be possible to generate the PACKAGES* index files in the
> 4.4.0/Recommended subdirectory? Then on the R side it would be needed
> to add a new repo (adjusting chooseCRANmirror() to set it together with
> repos["CRAN"]) and keep the rest of the machinery intact.
That's not how this worked in the past AFAIR. Simply, the packages in
the x.y.z/Recommended directories were included in
src/contrib/PACKAGES*, metadata, with the correct R version
dependencies, in the correct order, so that `install.packages()`
automatically installed the correct version without having to add
extra repositories or manually search for package files.
E.g. right now we have

Package: Matrix
Version: 1.7-0
Priority: recommended
Depends: R (>= 4.5), methods
Path: 4.5.0/Recommended

for R 4.5.0. IMHO what we would need for R 4.4.0 is adding
something like

Package: Matrix
Version: 1.7-0
Priority: recommended
Depends: R (>= 4.4), methods
Path: 4.4.0/Recommended

*after* that.

G.

[...]