[Rd] as-cran issue ==> set _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_* settings!

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Avraham Adler 
>>>>>     on Mon, 13 Jan 2020 14:38:12 -0500 writes:

    > Those of us stuck on Windows but who attempt to develop properly are
    > wounded to the quick, sir!

    > :)

    > Avi

Indeed, you had a ' :) ' , but others have perceived this as an insult.
I'm really really sorry for that and do want to apologize to all
of you affected.

Indeed, on one hand, not everybody has a choice, and even then,
I'm (and 100s of 1000s of others) are very grateful to those
among you who develop and test R (and other free software, say,
Emacs, or Rstudio) on Windows. 

I do want to entice people to have a long look beyond closed
source OS into the world of Free Software where not only R is
FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) but (all / almost) all the
tools you use are of that same spirit.

Best,
Martin



    > On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 12:24 PM Martin Maechler <maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch>
    > wrote:

    >> >>>>> Ben Bolker
    >> >>>>>     on Mon, 13 Jan 2020 11:49:09 -0500 writes:
    >> 
    >> > From R NEWS (changes in 3.6.0)
    >> > Experimentally, setting environment variable
    >> _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_
    >> > will lead to warnings (or errors if the variable is set to a ‘true’
    >> > value) when && or || encounter and use arguments of length more than
    >> one.
    >> 
    >> Indeed,  thank you, Ben.
    >> 
    >> Note (Dirk) this is not just something
    >> "by Henrik (..) as he tried to convince us all to use it more"
    >> 
    >> I've activated this (and the other
    >> _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_ ! )
    >> for years (maybe not many years, it just feels like it), and *EVERY TIME*
    >> it triggers, it's been revealing a programmeR's thinko / bug / ..,
    >> something where the code was clearly suboptimal and should've been
    >> improved.
    >> (Unfortunately, the bug has often been in packages, and sometimes I had to
    >> disable the setting when I wanted that "buggy" package to work ..)
    >> 
    >> Occasionally being puristic, let me state this:
    >> __________________________________________________________________
    >> /------------------------------------------------------------------\
    >> |                                                                  |
    >> | Every careful R programmer should use (something like "true",    |
    >> | "verbose", or even package=... )                                 |
    >> |                                                                  |
    >> | export _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_CONDITION_=true                         |
    >> | export _R_CHECK_LENGTH_1_LOGIC2_=verbose                         |
    >> |                                                                  |
    >> | in her/his ~/.profile equivalent (*)                             |
    >> \__________________________________________________________________/
    >> 
    >> 
    >> *) well assuming a careful R programmer would never develop on
    >> Windows anyway (where you need different means to set such
    >> environment variables).
    >> 
    >> 
    >> 
    >> > On 2020-01-13 11:46 a.m., Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D. via R-devel
    >> wrote:
    >> >> Thanks for the feedback Dirk.   I sent my follow-up before I saw it.
    >> >>
    >> >> Looking at the source code, it appears that there is no options()
    >> call
    >> >> to turn this on. Nor does "R --help" reveal a command line option.
    >> >> How then does a user turn this on outside of the R CMD check
    >> >> envirionment, so as to chase things like this down?
    >> >>
    >> >> The fact that 1. renaming my function makes the error go away, 2. my
    >> >> function is just a wrapper to inherits(), and 3. its a new error in
    >> code
    >> >> that hasn't changed, all point me towards some oddity with the check
    >> >> function.
    >> >>
    >> >> Terry
    >> >>
    >> >>
    >> >> On 1/13/20 10:22 AM, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
    >> >>>
    >> >>> On 13 January 2020 at 10:02, Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D. via R-devel
    >> wrote:
    >> >>> | Where can I find out (and replicate) what options as-cran turns
    >> on?
    >> >>>
    >> >>> See the file src/library/tools/R/check.R in the R sources, and
    >> grep for
    >> >>> as_cran which is the internal variable controlled by the --as-cran
    >> option
    >> >>>
    >> >>> [...]
    >> >>>
    >> >>> | The check log contains multiple instances of the lines below:
    >> >>> |
    >> >>> | < Warning message:
    >> >>> | < In if (ismat(kmat)) { :
    >> >>> | <   the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will
    >> be
    >> >>> used
    >> >>> |
    >> >>> | I don't see how the error could arise, but if I know what
    >> as-cran is
    >> >>> doing perhaps I can
    >> >>> | replicate it.
    >> >>>
    >> >>> This was widely discussed on this list and should also be in the
    >> NEWS
    >> >>> file.
    >> >>>
    >> >>> The change is about what the message says: the if () tests a scalar
    >> >>> logical,
    >> >>> it appears that ismat(kmat) returns more than a scalar.
    >> >>>
    >> >>> There has always been an opt-in for this to error -- cf many
    >> messages
    >> >>> by Henrik
    >> >>> over the years as he tried to convince us all to use it more.
    >> >>>
    >> >>>
    >> >>> Dirk
    >> >>>
    >> >>
    >> >> ______________________________________________
    >> >> R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
    >> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >> 
    >> > ______________________________________________
    >> > R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
    >> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >> 
    >> ______________________________________________
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    >> 
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