NEWS.md

In desc: Manipulate DESCRIPTION Files

desc 1.4.2

• The description$write() method, and thus all desc_*() functions work correctly now on R 4.3.x for packages that declare a non-UTF-8 encoding.

desc 1.4.1

• The $coerce_authors_at_r() method now does a much better job at setting the authors' roles (#114, @dpprdan).

desc 1.4.0

• DESCRIPTION objects created with the !new command now omit LazyData: true to match new CRAN checks (#105, @malcolmbarrett)

• description$write() now writes out the file in the correct encoding (#109).

• Authors@R fields are now formatted differently when normalizing a DESCRIPTION file (#78).

• New description$get_list(), description$set_list() and corresponding desc_get_list() and desc_set_list() values to query and create comma separated fields (#86).

Breaking change

• desc_get_field() gains a boolean squish_ws parameter to normalize whitespace within the retrieved value. It defaults to the value of trim_ws (TRUE by default). Example with desc's current DESCRIPTION:

Old behaviour:

```r

desc::desc_get_field("Description") [1] "... DESCRIPTION files.\n It is intended for packages ..." ```

New behaviour:

```r

desc::desc_get_field("Description") [1] "... DESCRIPTION files. It is intended for packages ..." ```

If you want the old behaviour, just set squish_ws = FALSE.

1.3.0

• Adding authors with long names or other fields (comment, typically) works well now (#91).

• get_deps() now removes unneeded whitespace from version requirements (#84).

• normalize() now does not drop Authors@R on non-UTF-8 systems when it has non-ASCII characters (#80).

• has_dep() now works well with dependencies listed multiple times (#97, @richfitz).

• Add coerce_authors_at_r() method to convert Author to Authors@R (#44, @muschellij2).

• add_author() and similar functions now allow a character vector of multiple roles (@niceume, #89).

• desc_set_deps() now inserts new packages in (case-insensitive) alphabetical order, if the existing packages are already in alphabetical order.

• New add_author_gh() method and desc_add_author_gh() function to add an author using the information available from GitHub V3 API. This method and function depend on gh and are limited when the GitHub user full name is incomplete or not well parsed by as.person() and when their email address isn't available (@maelle, #71).

• When using desc_normalize() the package dependencies are now alphabetically sorted (#66, @llrs).

• New add_orcid() method and desc_add_orcid() functions make it possible to add ORCID IDs to authors directly instead of via the comment argument (@maelle, #70).

• All functions and methods managing authors (add_me, add_author(), del_author(), add_role(), del_role(), change_maintainer(), search_for_author(), add_me(), etc.) gain an orcid argument (@maelle, #70).

• In person() within the Authors@R field, comment can now be a named character vector (@maelle, #69; @gvegayon, #65).

• When using desc(text=) parameter, set textConnection(encoding = "bytes") to handle cases when the input text is in a different marked encoding than the default encoding, such as UTF-8 input on Windows.

1.2.0

• Add get_field() method, with easier to use failure and fallback semantics (#62)

• Use the Encoding field to read and write DESCRIPTION with the correct encoding. UTF-8 is always used internally by desc. (#52, #53)

• Add get_built() function to parse the Built field used in package binaries. (#48, @jimhester)

• get_deps() (and desc_get_deps()) return a zero-row data frame instead of NULL for packages without any dependencies, for consistency.

• Empty DESCRIPTION files are handled more gracefully, as are querying no fields with desc_get()

• Remotes, VignetteBuilder and RdMacros fields are syntax checked. (#59, @krlmlr)

• Account for non-URL content in the URL field (#57, @jennybc)

• Allow for IETF region subtag in Language field (#55, @jeroen)

• Fix continuation lines in output

• get_deps() returns empty data frame if no dependencies, instead of NULL

1.1.1

• Relax the R >= 3.2.0 dependency, R 3.1.0 is enough now.

1.1.0

• Fix bug when adding authors and there is no Authors@R field

• Get DESCRIPTION from package archives (#40)

• Fix but in del_dep() and has_dep(), they only worked if the package was attached.

1.0.1

• Fix formatting of Collate fields, they always start at a new line now.

• Fix formatting of Authors@R fields, when changed.

• Keep trailing space after the : character, see #14

1.0.0

First public release.

desc documentation built on Sept. 8, 2022, 5:06 p.m.