[R] CRAN packaging checklist for version 18.1.0

[amoeba]

Describe the enhancement requested

Packaging checklist for CRAN release

For a high-level overview of the release process see the Apache Arrow Release Management Guide.

cc @jonkeane @thisisnic @nealrichardson @assignUser @paleolimbot @eitsupi

Before the release candidate is cut

• [x] Create a GitHub issue entitled [R] CRAN packaging checklist for version X.X.X and copy this checklist to the issue.
• [x] Review deprecated functions to advance their deprecation status, including removing preprocessor directives that no longer apply (search for ARROW_VERSION_MAJOR in r/src).
• [ ] Evaluate the status of any failing nightly tests and nightly packaging builds. These checks replicate most of the checks that CRAN runs, so we need them all to be passing or to understand that the failures may (though won't necessarily) result in a rejection from CRAN.
• [x] Check current CRAN check results
• [x] Ensure the contents of the README are accurate and up to date.
• [x] Run urlchecker::url_check() on the R directory at the release candidate. commit. Ignore any errors with badges as they will be removed in the CRAN release branch.
• [x] Polish NEWS but do not update version numbers (this is done automatically later). You can find commits by, for example, git log --oneline <sha of last release>..HEAD | grep "\[R\]"
• [x] Run preliminary reverse dependency checks using archery docker run r-revdepcheck.
• [ ] For major releases, prepare tweet thread highlighting new features.

Wait for the release candidate to be cut:

After release candidate has been cut

• [x] Create a CRAN-release branch from the release candidate commit, name the new branch e.g. maint-X.X.X-r and push to upstream

Prepare and check the .tar.gz that will be released to CRAN.

• [ ] git fetch upstream && git checkout release-X.X.X-rcXX && git clean -f -d
• [ ] Run make build. This copies Arrow C++ into tools/cpp, prunes some unnecessary components, and runs R CMD build to generate the source tarball. Because this will install the package, you will need to ensure that the version of Arrow C++ available to the configure script is the same as the version that is vendored into the R package (e.g., you may need to unset ARROW_HOME).
• [ ] devtools::check_built("arrow_X.X.X.tar.gz") locally
• [ ] Run reverse dependency checks using archery docker run r-revdepcheck.

Release vote

• [ ] Release vote passed!

Generate R package to submit to CRAN

• [x] If the release candidate commit updated, rebase the CRAN release branch on that commit.
• [x] Pick any commits that were made to main since the release commit that were needed to fix CRAN-related submission issues identified in the above steps.
• [x] Remove badges from README.md
• [x] Run urlchecker::url_check() on the R directory
• [x] Create a PR entitled WIP: [R] Verify CRAN release-10.0.1-rc0. Add a comment @github-actions crossbow submit --group r to run all R crossbow jobs against the CRAN-specific release branch.
• [ ] Run Rscript tools/update-checksums.R <libarrow version> to download the checksums for the pre-compiled binaries from the ASF artifactory into the tools directory.
• [ ] Regenerate arrow_X.X.X.tar.gz (i.e., make build)

Check binary Arrow C++ distributions specific to the R package

• [ ] Upload the .tar.gz to win-builder (r-devel only) and confirm (with Jon, who will automatically receive an email about the results) that the check is clean.
• [ ] Upload the .tar.gz to MacBuilder and confirm that the check is clean
• [ ] Check install.packages("arrow_X.X.X.tar.gz") on Ubuntu and ensure that the hosted binaries are used
• [ ] devtools::check_built("arrow_X.X.X.tar.gz") locally one more time (for luck)

CRAN submission

• [ ] Upload arrow_X.X.X.tar.gz to the CRAN submit page
• [ ] Confirm the submission email

Wait for CRAN...

• [ ] Accepted!
• [ ] Tag the tip of the CRAN-specific release branch with r-universe-release
• [ ] Add a new line to the matrix in the backwards compatability job
• [ ] (patch releases only) Update the package version in ci/scripts/PKGBUILD, dev/tasks/homebrew-formulae/autobrew/apache-arrow.rb, r/DESCRIPTION, and r/NEWS.md
• [ ] (CRAN-only releases) Rebuild news page with pkgdown::build_news() and submit a PR to the asf-site branch of the docs site with the contents of arrow/r/docs/news/index.html replacing the current contents of arrow-site/docs/r/news/index.html
• [ ] (CRAN-only releases) Bump the version number in r/pkgdown/assets/versions.json, and update this on the the asf-site branch of the docs site too.
• [ ] Update the packaging checklist template to reflect any new realities of the packaging process.
• [ ] Wait for CRAN-hosted binaries on the CRAN package page to reflect the new version
• [ ] Tweet!
  • Use Bryce's script for contributor calculation.

Component(s)

R

[assignUser]

Awesome, thanks!

[amoeba]

There are a few failures over in the verification PR that need investigating (test-r-devdocs, test-r-rhub-debian-gcc-devel-lto-latest, r-recheck-most). I'll plan to work on them later today/tomorrow.

[amoeba]

I looked into the two crossbow job failures and neither looked simple to diagnose and fix. @assignUser can you have a look? It's also not clear to me whether these two failures should hold up submitting to CRAN.

The recheck job above fails but it looks like that's fine since the failure is just because the recheck result for a couple of packages changed from 17.x to 18.x.