Hi All, I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note: checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE Malformed Description field: should contain one or more complete sentences. This is puzzling because: cat DESCRIPTION ... Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. ... In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data.? *is* a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in the opinion of whomever coded that check? Best F -- Federico Calboli Ecological Genetics Research Unit Department of Biosciences PO Box 65 (Biocenter 3, Viikinkaari 1) FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Finland federico.calboli at helsinki.fi
It might be a line break problem - I think you want:
Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype
association and
for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data.
Hadley
On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 10:09 AM, Federico Calboli
<federico.calboli at helsinki.fi> wrote:> Hi All,
>
> I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note:
>
> checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE
> Malformed Description field: should contain one or more complete sentences.
>
> This is puzzling because:
>
> cat DESCRIPTION
>
> ...
> Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype
association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data.
> ...
>
> In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single
gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data.? *is*
a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in the opinion of whomever
coded that check?
>
> Best
>
> F
>
> --
> Federico Calboli
> Ecological Genetics Research Unit
> Department of Biosciences
> PO Box 65 (Biocenter 3, Viikinkaari 1)
> FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
> Finland
>
> federico.calboli at helsinki.fi
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
--
http://had.co.nz/
> On 3 Jul 2015, at 12:14, Hadley Wickham <h.wickham at gmail.com> wrote: > > It might be a line break problem - I think you want: > > Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype > association and > for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data.Tried this and unfortunately it does not help. BW F> > Hadley > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 10:09 AM, Federico Calboli > <federico.calboli at helsinki.fi> wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note: >> >> checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE >> Malformed Description field: should contain one or more complete sentences. >> >> This is puzzling because: >> >> cat DESCRIPTION >> >> ... >> Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. >> ... >> >> In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data.? *is* a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in the opinion of whomever coded that check? >> >> Best >> >> F >> >> -- >> Federico Calboli >> Ecological Genetics Research Unit >> Department of Biosciences >> PO Box 65 (Biocenter 3, Viikinkaari 1) >> FIN-00014 University of Helsinki >> Finland >> >> federico.calboli at helsinki.fi >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > > -- > http://had.co.nz/-- Federico Calboli Ecological Genetics Research Unit Department of Biosciences PO Box 65 (Biocenter 3, Viikinkaari 1) FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Finland federico.calboli at helsinki.fi
On 03/07/15 20:09, Federico Calboli wrote:> Hi All, > > I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note: > > checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE Malformed Description > field: should contain one or more complete sentences. > > This is puzzling because: > > cat DESCRIPTION > > ... Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype > association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. ... > > In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single > gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic > data.? *is* a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in > the opinion of whomever coded that check?If that is your understanding you need to go back to school and learn some grammar. What you have is a noun ("Functions") modified by an adjectival clause. No verb in sight. Ergo *not* a complete sentence. OTOH you are probably in good company in not knowing your grammar. The CRAN folks most likely don't know grammar either. I suspect that they *don't* actually demand a complete sentence. Such a demand would in fact be rather pedantic. Moreover I really can't see how the package checker could possibly check for complete sentences. This would require some very sophisticated programming, it seems to me. If it turns out that you *really* need a complete sentence, you could say (for instance): This package consists of functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. The foregoing *is* a complete sentence. cheers, Rolf Turner -- Technical Editor ANZJS Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
Sigh, how natural it is to say "This package ...", but you probably don't know a package can be easily rejected by CRAN simply because of this phrase "This package" (it has been clearly stated in the R-exts manual). I don't think the grammar is the problem here. When in doubt, I always check what MASS does: http://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/MASS/index.html Turns out its description is not a complete sentence, either. Sounds like R has become a language for statistical computing and graphics, plus English grammar since 3.0.x. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie <xieyihui at gmail.com> Web: http://yihui.name On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 8:43 AM, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:> On 03/07/15 20:09, Federico Calboli wrote: >> >> Hi All, >> >> I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note: >> >> checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE Malformed Description >> field: should contain one or more complete sentences. >> >> This is puzzling because: >> >> cat DESCRIPTION >> >> ... Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype >> association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. ... >> >> In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single >> gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic >> data.? *is* a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in >> the opinion of whomever coded that check? > > > > If that is your understanding you need to go back to school and learn some > grammar. What you have is a noun ("Functions") modified by an adjectival > clause. No verb in sight. Ergo *not* a complete sentence. > > OTOH you are probably in good company in not knowing your grammar. The CRAN > folks most likely don't know grammar either. I suspect that they *don't* > actually demand a complete sentence. Such a demand would in fact be rather > pedantic. Moreover I really can't see how the package checker could > possibly check for complete sentences. This would require some very > sophisticated programming, it seems to me. > > If it turns out that you *really* need a complete sentence, you could say > (for instance): > > This package consists of functions designed to test for single > gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. > > The foregoing *is* a complete sentence. > > cheers, > > Rolf Turner > > -- > Technical Editor ANZJS > Department of Statistics > University of Auckland > Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
On Fri, 3 Jul 2015 11:09:54 +0300 Federico Calboli <federico.calboli at helsinki.fi> wrote:> Hi All, > > I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note: > > checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE > Malformed Description field: should contain one or more complete > sentences. > > This is puzzling because: > > cat DESCRIPTION > > ... > Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype > association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. ... > > In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single > gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic > data.? *is* a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in > the opinion of whomever coded that check? > > Best > > FWell, no. It isn't a complete sentence which requires a subject, and object and a verb. However, there are not many package Descriptions that ARE complete sentences. Some could be reworded awkwardly into a functional sentence. You could for instance try: "[Library/Package name] is a collection of functions designed to test for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data." That is a complete sentence as it contains a form of the verb "to be," to whit "is." By using the package name you also avoid the stricture against "The package consists ..." JWdougherty
A couple of pointers:
(a) R-package-devel exists and is right ------> thataway
(b) R is open source, and QC.R is pretty easy to find. Reading the source, it
appears that the check is only for whether the Description: field is terminated
by punctuation, possibly followed by a quote.
(c) I'd try read.dcf("DESCRIPTION")[,"Description"] and
check that it contains what you think it would contain.
-pd
> On 05 Jul 2015, at 11:13 , jwd <jwd at surewest.net> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 3 Jul 2015 11:09:54 +0300
> Federico Calboli <federico.calboli at helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I am upgrading a package for CRAN, and I get this note:
>>
>> checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... NOTE
>> Malformed Description field: should contain one or more complete
>> sentences.
>>
>> This is puzzling because:
>>
>> cat DESCRIPTION
>>
>> ...
>> Description: Functions designed to test for single gene/phenotype
>> association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data. ...
>>
>> In my understanding "Functions designed to test for single
>> gene/phenotype association and for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic
>> data.? *is* a complete sentence. So, what is complete sentence in
>> the opinion of whomever coded that check?
>>
>> Best
>>
>> F
>
> Well, no. It isn't a complete sentence which requires a subject, and
> object and a verb. However, there are not many package Descriptions
> that ARE complete sentences. Some could be reworded awkwardly into a
> functional sentence. You could for instance try:
>
> "[Library/Package name] is a collection of functions designed to test
> for pleiotropy on genetic and genomic data."
>
> That is a complete sentence as it contains a form of the
> verb "to be," to whit "is." By using the package name
you also avoid
> the stricture against "The package consists ..."
>
> JWdougherty
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
--
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com