From g@bembecker @end|ng |rom gm@||@com  Fri Aug  9 22:37:24 2019
From: g@bembecker @end|ng |rom gm@||@com (Gabriel Becker)
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2019 13:37:24 -0700
Subject: [Rd] Underscores in package names
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Duncan,


On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 1:17 PM Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 09/08/2019 2:41 p.m., Gabriel Becker wrote:
> > Note that this proposal would make mypackage_2.3.1 a valid *package
> name*,
> > whose corresponding tarball name might be mypackage_2.3.1_2.3.2 after a
> > patch. Yes its a silly example, but why allow that kind of ambiguity?
> >
> CRAN already has a package named "FuzzyNumbers.Ext.2", whose tarball is
> FuzzyNumbers.Ext.2_3.2.tar.gz, so I think we've already lost that game.
>

I suppose technically 2 is a valid version number for a package (?) so I
suppose you have me there. But as Ben pointed out while I was writing this,
all I can really say is that in practice they read to me (as someone who
has administered R on a large cluster and written build-system software for
it) as substantially different levels of ambiguity. I do acknowledge, as
Ben does, that yes a more complex regular expression/splitting algorithm
can be written that would handle the more general package names. I just
don't personally see a motivation that justifies changing something this
fundamental (even if it is both narrow and was initially more or less
arbitrarily chosen) about R at this late date.

I guess at the end of the day, I guess what I'm saying is that breaking and
changing things is sometimes good, but if we're going to rock the boat
personally I'd want to do so going after bigger wins than this one. Thats
just my opinion though.

Best,
~G


> Duncan Murdoch
>
>

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[Rd] Underscores in package names
Gabriel Becker