From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Fri Jun 25 10:15:44 2004
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Fri Jun 25 10:15:46 2004
Subject: [Rd] news file included in source but not binary package
In-Reply-To: <3A822319EB35174CA3714066D590DCD504AF7F71@usrymx25.merck.com>
References: <3A822319EB35174CA3714066D590DCD504AF7F71@usrymx25.merck.com>
Message-ID: <16603.57136.919489.318322@gargle.gargle.HOWL>

>>>>> "AndyL" == Liaw, Andy <andy_liaw@merck.com>
>>>>>     on Thu, 24 Jun 2004 19:33:00 -0400 writes:

    >> From: Friedrich Leisch
    >> 
 
    >> But to get to the heart of the email (something similar
    >> was proposed by Greg Warnes a few weeks ago): We should
    >> definetely provide a simple mechanism to see the latest
    >> changes in a package.
    >> 
    >> Question: I am aware of files calles NEWS and ChangeLog
    >> (or CHANGELOG, etc.) holding the relevant information
    >> ... are there any others we want/need to respect?

    AndyL> Yes, I do recall the thread that Greg started.  This
    AndyL> is sort of trying to get it going again...  

yes, thanks, Andy!

    AndyL> Could we just settle on a standard name and be done
    AndyL> with it?  Since base R uses NEWS, why not just use
    AndyL> that for all packages,

We emacs fans would definitely additionally want 'ChangeLog' (as
per Fritz' proposal).
This has been a standard name for decades with a very convenient
emacs interface ['C-x 4 a'] to create and update the file.

    AndyL> and use NEWS.platform as Duncan suggested
    AndyL> (in the top-level directory, rather than
    AndyL> platform-specific directories)?

I agree.  

BTW, both NEWS and ChangeLog have specific (but different) syntax
the main difference that NEWS entries are anonymous and not
dated whereas ChangeLog is a "log", i.e. has dated entries.
Kurt (or Fritz?) already mentioned in the earlier
'Greg-initiated' thread that it might be interesting to consider
automatic conversion of these files to (e.g.) html.  
But such possibilities should not hinder us from agreeing *now*
that e.g. files with regexps
----------
m{NEWS.*}
m{Change(s|Log)}i
----------
should automatically be taken from the source toplevel directory
and put into <installed>/doc/<filename>.txt
				       ^^^^
(the '.txt' maybe a good idea idea because the ./doc/ directory
 can be easily opened in the browser in some interfaces)

Martin


[Rd] news file included in source but not binary package
Martin Maechler