dh-r

Debhelper for R packaging

dh-r provides a debhelper buildsystem for R packages. Using it should be as simple as replacing cdbs with dh-r in Build-Depends and replacing debian/rules with:

#!/usr/bin/make -f

%:
    dh $@ --buildsystem R

Optionally, you can request vignettes be built by adding --with vignette, but note that r-base-dev does not depend on a LaTeX installation, and you will need to explicitly add at least texlive and texinfo in addition to any R packages required.

Features

dh-r should provide parity with the existing CDBS macro (/usr/share/R/debian/r-cran.mk) - choosing the correct library directory, setting the build timestamp from the changelog, generating r-base-core and r-api-VERSION dependencies and cleaning up some extraneous files.

In addition:

• R packages already available in the archive are automatically detected and included in the ${R:Depends}, ${R:Recommends} and ${R:Suggests} substvars
• Script dh-make-R generates a debian/ skeleton from an extracted R package tarball
• Script dh-update-R updates debian/control (particularly Build-Depends) after importing a new R tarball

Notes

Build and install currently happens entirely during the debhelper install step (since R CMD INSTALL performs both as a single operation).

The convert-to-dh-r script reads an existing debian/control and outputs a new one to stdout, swapping cdbs for dh-r in Build-Depends and replacing binary package Depends, Recommends and Suggests with substvar versions. If there are depedencies apart from R and shlibs-detectable libraries they will need to be re-added.