R-universe builds and checks all CRAN packages on arm64 on Mac, Linux
and soon Windows. It is important that we can identify from a binary
package for which architecture it was built. R inserts this
information into the second part of the "Built:" field in the
DESCRIPTION. For example, packages with compiled code contain:
Built: R 4.5.0; aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu; 2025-05-05 14:06:56 UTC; unix
And packages without compiled code contain:
Built: R 4.5.0; ; 2025-05-08 06:46:33 UTC; unix
However this is not working for packages that compile something, but
do not have a 'src' dir. I think these packages are supposed to
manually set "NeedsCompilation: yes" in their DESCRIPTION file. Two
suggestions:
1. Currently R only records the platform in the mentioned "Built" if
the source package contains a 'src' dir. Could this be improved such
that it also does so for these packages with "NeedsCompilation: yes"?
Here is a two line patch:
https://github.com/r-devel/r-svn/pull/199/files
2. There are a handful of CRAN packages that have "NeedsCompilation:
yes" but they neither have a 'src' dir nor a 'configure' script. Afaik
this is a contradiction, as there is no place any compilation can be
invoked without either of these files present? I think in most these
cases "NeedsCompilation: yes" is a leftover from older versions. If
so, would it be possible for CMD check to warn against redundant
NeedsCompilation:yes? Here is a script to list packages that currently
use this: https://gist.github.com/jeroen/e8b225e9b1004a16ef90f50700352aa5
Thank you
______________________________________________
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
