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BiocManager does not respect `dependencies = TRUE` when the non-Suggests packages have already been installed

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
r
Domain
tooling

Research direction

Start by reproducing the two BiocManager::install('phangorn') calls shown in the issue, comparing them with install.packages(..., dependencies = TRUE). Trace the BiocManager::install entry point and dependency-handling path; done means missing dependencies are installed without reinstalling an already current phangorn package.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Reported via email

.libPaths(tempfile())
BiocManager::install('phangorn') # installs phangorn

So far so good, but

> BiocManager::install('phangorn', dependencies = TRUE)
Bioconductor version 3.17 (BiocManager 1.30.20), R Under development (unstable)
  (2023-02-21 r83887)
Old packages: 'MASS', 'mgcv', 'survival'
Update all/some/none? [a/s/n]: n
Warning message:
package(s) not installed when version(s) same as or greater than current; use
  `force = TRUE` to re-install: 'phangorn'
>

so the dependencies are not installed...

install.packages() says

> install.packages('phangorn', dependencies = TRUE, repos = "https://cran.r-project.org")
Installing package into ‘/private/var/folders/yn/gmsh_22s2c55v816r6d51fx1tnyl61/T/RtmpsjHQs2’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
Warning: dependencies ‘Biostrings’, ‘seqLogo’ are not available
also installing the dependencies ‘htmlwidgets’, ‘bslib’, ...

It also re-installs 'phangorn', which is not desirable.

I guess a workaround is to follow the BiocManager advice, and install missing dependencies and re-install phangorn.

BiocManager::install('phangorn', dependencies = TRUE, force = TRUE)
> packageVersion('BiocManager')
[1] ‘1.30.20’
Dominant language
R
Stars
76
Forks
29
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Getting set up

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First steps

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  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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