Remove {styler} dependency

[lorenzwalthert]

Hi, author of the formatting package {styler} here. As I judge from a search in your source code, there is no functionality that uses {styler}, in other words {styler} is not a runtime dependency. You recommend people to format their code when they contribute, so {styler} is a development dependency. Adding {styler} as a dependency to your package has the following drawbacks:

• Your user's may install a package they don't need (assuming most people who install your package are useres, not developers). This costs additional bandwith, installation time, disk space etc... If they need it, they can just manually install it.
• I as a maintainer of {styler} have to run reverse dependency checks (R CMD Check your package with my new version of {styler}) upon submitting to CRAN e.g. with {revdepcheck}. {styler} has more than 40 reverse dependencies, which makes this a long process.

For that reason, I suggest you to drop that dependency from your package. If you want to ensure your code remains styled, I recommend {precommit} to apply {styler} on each commit or other tools described in the third-party integrations website of {styler}.

For the removal to take effect, a CRAN submission of your package is required. For tracking, this issue is referenced in r-lib/styler#1121.

[bms63]

HI @lorenzwalthert so we have an automated renv.lock generation that is housed here: https://github.com/pharmaverse/admiralci/blob/main/.github/workflows/r-renv-lock.yml

Unfortunately, it pulls the styler package out of the Description File to help generate the renv.lock file. This way developers can easily install all necessary packages to do development work.

I don't think we can remove the package right now, but we will continue to discuss if there is a better solution so we don't have so many dependencies like styler and cause you headaches when doing a release!

@galachad @cicdguy what do you think?

[lorenzwalthert]

ok, thanks for the explanation. I agree that in conjunction with {renv}, it's a special case. FWIW with renv::record(), you can manually record a dependency into renv.lock that is not in DESCRIPTION, but then if people use {renv} APIs to update renv.lock e.g. with renv::snapshot() (if they ever), they might be confused about the diff they see, as styler would then be removed from renv.lock.

[galachad]

Hi @lorenzwalthert thank you for the suggestion. I think we can remove it from the DESCRIPTION and keep the {styler} only in renv.lock for developers.

The {styler} is only in Suggests section of DESCRIPTION. Is it still impacting your reverse dependency {revdepcheck} process?

[lorenzwalthert]

Ok, cool. Yes, Suggests: are also checked. Thanks.

[galachad]

• admiraldev
• admiral
• admiraltemplate
• admiralvaccine
• admiraloptha
• admiralonco
• admiral.test

Should be removed from all repositories.

[lorenzwalthert]

Thanks for acting so timely. Hope you can enjoy the latest {styler} release with significant speed gain 😄