[R] Package testing

[Duncan Murdoch]

Gábor Csárdi wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I would like to write some tests for my R package, and the usual
> 'tests' directory seemed like a good solution, but there is something
> I cannot understand.
>
> It is possible to supply .Rout.save files with the expected output for
> the tests, which is great. But since the tests are not run with R
> --slave, the expected output needs to contain all the extra output
> from R, e.g. the startup message. The commands are echoed to the
> output, too.
>
> This makes it difficult to write proper tests, as they will
> necessarily fail on all but one R versions (the version number is
> always part of the output), and one would need to write the test
> programs twice, once in the normal .R file, and once in the .Rout.save
> file.
>
> Is there a way to work around these things? Or am I trying to use the
> 'tests' directory for something that was not intended?
>   

The normal workflow is to write the tests as R files, and run them.  
Then manually check every line of the Rout, and when you're satisfied 
it's fine, save it as an Rout.save file.  After that R will only report 
changes to that file that occur after the header, so version numbering 
changes will be ignored, but changes that affect your output will not.

Duncan Murdoch