Blank line in DESCRIPTION breaks installation with devtools >= 1.4

[lgatto]

Using version 1.3 from CRAN

> library("devtools")
> packageVersion("devtools")
[1] ‘1.3’
> install_github("sequences", "lgatto")
Installing github repo(s) sequences/master from lgatto
Downloading sequences.zip from https://github.com/lgatto/sequences/archive/master.zip
Installing package from /tmp/RtmpQp2BHj/sequences.zip
Installing sequences
[ ... ]
** R
** data
** inst
** tests
** preparing package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
** building package indices
** installing vignettes
** testing if installed package can be loaded
* DONE (sequences)

but with the latest version from github

> library("devtools")
> packageVersion("devtools")
[1] ‘1.4.0.99’
> install_github("sequences", "lgatto")
Installing github repo sequences/master from lgatto
Downloading sequences.zip from https://github.com/lgatto/sequences/archive/master.zip
Installing package from /tmp/RtmpQp2BHj/sequences.zip
arguments 'minimized' and 'invisible' are for Windows only
Installing sequences
Error: contains a blank line

Indeed, there is a blank line in the DESCRIPTION file.

Tested on R version 3.0.2 Patched (2013-10-02 r64018) Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit). using R 3.0.2 (2013-09-25) x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64, both devtools 1.4 and 1.4.0.99 produce the error.

Feature or bug?

[jeroen]

Ran into this as well. I don't think blank lines are illegal in DESCRIPTION files? According to R NEWS 2.15.3:

R CMD check no longer fails with an error if a ‘DESCRIPTION’ file incorrectly contains a blank line. (Reported by Bill Dunlap.)

So I think devtools shouldn't be choking on this either?

[hadley]

This bug is triggered by pkgVignettes() which I use to determine if the package has any vignettes - so I think this is an R bug.

[lgatto]

I investigated a bit and the error occurs in utils:::.read_description. The function seems to work fine if there is a blank line at the very end, but fails if it occurs in the middle of the file. However, devtools appends github-specific information (GithubRepo, GithubUsername, ...) at the end of the file, which eventually causes the error.

[hadley]

@lgatto as a workaround, remove the empty line at the end of your DESCRIPTION?

[lgatto]

@hadley yes, of course, that's the most pragmatic fix. I have posted this on r-devel, to see if blank lines are supposed to trigger such an error or not.

[lgatto]

@hadley Would you consider a pull request that checks/removes black lines before appending the Github lines? Something along the lines

desclines <- readLines(desc)
writeLines(desclines[!grepl('^[ \t]*$', desclines)], desc)

in install-github.r