You could go down this rabbit hole if you like, but I suspect it has something to do with maintaining compatibility with multiple operating systems and I doubt R Core will explore the consequences of this change for you. Windows, for example, allows long file names but has some nasty corners that break if your total path+filename is 260+ characters and packages do get installed in directories fairly deep into the directory structure on a regular basis (e.g. packrat). Other tools that the R ecosystem depends on could also have internal constraints that come up when one tool builds on another and so on.
Have fun with that! On April 18, 2019 11:02:15 AM PDT, Steven Scott <steve.the.bayes...@gmail.com> wrote: >Thanks Dirk, >Yes, I've done the same, and I agree the rules are the rules. Rules >should >be updated when they're no longer helpful, or when their cost outweighs >their benefit. I'm curious whether that might be the case here. >Cheers, >Steve > > >On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 10:54 AM Dirk Eddelbuettel <e...@debian.org> >wrote: > >> >> On 18 April 2019 at 10:37, Steven Scott wrote: >> | My Boom package makes a C++ library available to package authors >(mainly >> | me). The wrapped library is used outside of R and must comply with >> | external style rules such as UseLongDescriptiveNames, and files >must be >> | named for the class they contain. From time to time a >> | LongDescriptiveFileName, when paired with its full directory path, >> exceeds >> | 100 characters. >> | >> | This creates a conflict with CRAN's rules about long file names, >which >> | stems from tar. I'm wondering what this community thinks about >asking >> for >> | that rule to be relaxed. Both gnu tar and posix tar now allow >unlimited >> | length filenames, and the ustar format allows names up to 256 >characters. >> | >> | I'm interested in the opinions of people on this list about whether >this >> | rule has outlived its usefulness. Thanks. >> >> There are no "opinions". There is CRAN Repo Policy. >> >> The BH package your Boom depends upon is actually named BH in part >because >> having a two-letter name shrunk the set of files violating this very >> constraint. Yet at every release I still get to renamed one file, >and >> update >> one include statement. All documented in the ChangeLog. >> >> So I would change the filenames, and move on. >> >> Dirk >> >> -- >> http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org >> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > >______________________________________________ >R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel -- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity. ______________________________________________ R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
