install_* requires non-source files under version control

[klmr]

The install_* family of functions which install from a repository (git, github, gitorious, bitbucket …) require non-source files in that repository in order to work.

In particular, it requires a NAMESPACE file in the repository, even though said file is generated from source (#' @export directives), and should therefore not be put under version control. The error I’m getting is

* installing *source* package 'packagename' ...
ERROR: a 'NAMESPACE' file is required

As a consequence, I cannot use it to install a GitHub hosted package without putting auto-generated files under version control.

[tbates]

There are plenty of auto generated files already in your version control:
Rd files for instance. If you like, you could not add them to vc and just
generate them at all the locations you compile from?
On Mar 31, 2014 11:53 AM, "Konrad Rudolph" notifications@github.com wrote:

The install_* family of functions which install from a repository (git,
github, gitorious, bitbucket …) require non-source files in that
repository in order to work.

In particular, it requires a NAMESPACE file in the repository, even
though said file is generated from source (#' @export directives), and
should therefore not be put under version control. The error I’m getting is

• installing source package 'packagename' ...
  ERROR: a 'NAMESPACE' file is required

As a consequence, I cannot use it to install a GitHub hosted package
without putting auto-generated files under version control.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/449
.

[klmr]

There are plenty of auto generated files already in your version control

Actually there aren’t. Rd files for instance of course aren’t there either. The only auto-generated files are those which are generated once and then updated by hand (DESCRIPTION). Auto-generated files don’t really belong under VCS. Of course different people have different opinions about that, but devtools at the moment forces one opinion, which many VCS users believe to be the wrong one.

[krlmlr]

To me, this looks very similar to #397.

[klmr]

👍

Maybe install_* could simply provide a from_source=TRUE option or similar, instead of putting this into the (ostensibly tool agnostic) DESCRIPTION file, but really any option which makes this fundamentally possible would be good.

[hadley]

Closing as it's a dup.