On 6/21/23 8:33 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:39:48 -0400
<avi.e.gr...@gmail.com> wrote:
If you really need a new package name, is there an accepted way to
update the old name to at least provide a message for a while as to
the new name to use and perhaps have the load otherwise fail?
I don't know about "accepted", but the following paradigm seems to me
to be sensible and reasonably efficacious:
* you have a package "foo" the name of which you wish to change to "bar"
* create a new package "bar" which is the same as "foo" except for its
name
* now replace foo with a skeleton package which has only the file
First.R in its R directory
* the file First.R should be something like:
.onAttach <- function(lib, pkg) {
ver <- read.dcf(file.path(lib, pkg, "DESCRIPTION"), "Version")
packageStartupMessage(paste(pkg, ver))
msg <- paste("\n This package, \"foo\" is now",
" deprecated. Users",
"\n should install and use its",
" successor \"bar\".\n")
packageStartupMessage(msg) }
* submit both "bar" and "foo" to CRAN
Years ago, I had package "RSiteSearch". I asked some R list what
might be a better name for that. "sos" was suggested, and Duncan
Murdoch contributed code for an enhancement. Then I added something
like ".onAttach" to "RSiteSearch" and kept it on CRAN for a couple of
years after introducing "sos". That allowed people to use the old
package for a couple of years without forcing them to switch immediately.
I think that worked quite well.
Hope this helps.
Spencer Graves
cheers,
Rolf Turner
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