[Rd] "bug report" field in DESCRIPTION file?

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "DM" == Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>>>>>     on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:23:39 -0500 writes:

    DM> On 26/11/2009 12:38 PM, Barry Rowlingson wrote:
    >> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
    >> 
    >>> This sounds like a good idea, though I would add a "package" parameter to
    >>> the bug.report() function, rather than creating a new function.
    >> 
    >> I'm sure when I did help.search("bug") and help.search("report") this
    >> morning I didn't see this function! Otherwise I would have suggested
    >> that. bug.report(package="bazbrain"). Oh dear, no maintainer.
    >> 
    >>> Does the logic below sound right for bug.report() with the package
    >>> specified?
    >>> 
    >>> If there's a BugReports field, bug.report() calls browseURL() on that page.
    >>> 
    >>> If not, it does more or less what it does now, but
    >>> - it defaults "address" to the package maintainer. - it adds a line in the
    >>> intro to the message pointing to the URL field if there was one.
    >> 
    >> Martin Maechler's reservation about not being able to fill in the R
    >> details for bug reports on trackers isn't too much of a problem, since
    >> the bug tracker form could have fields for R version, session info
    >> etc, or at least a big warning saying "Please include the following
    >> info" (inside a <blink> tag).
    >> 
    >> So how about if bug.report(package="foo") has a BugReports: field,
    >> you print out 'The following information may be useful to your bug
    >> report' and dump the relevant things ready for cut n paste into a bug
    >> tracker, then browseURL().

    DM> I've just committed this to R-devel.  Thanks for the suggestion, and 
    DM> thanks in advance for any improvements.

    DM> Duncan Murdoch

Thank you, Duncan, and Barry!  This seems really useful now.
As a package maintainer, I'd definitely want the user to provide
the sessionInfo() etc.
Hence providing that to the user for cut'n'paste into a web form
seems a nice approach.

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich