Documentation of `dependencies` argument is sub-optimal for functions that inherit it

[EmilHvitfeldt]

install_deps() and install_dev_deps() are documented together, but since they have different defaults for the dependencies argument, they conflict with the documentation from remotes::install_deps that states

Which dependencies do you want to check? Can be a character vector (selecting from "Depends", "Imports", "LinkingTo", "Suggests", or "Enhances"), or a logical vector.TRUE is shorthand for "Depends", "Imports", "LinkingTo" and "Suggests". NA is shorthand for "Depends", "Imports" and "LinkingTo" and is the default. FALSE is shorthand for no dependencies (i.e. just check this package, not its dependencies).

[jennybc]

devtools::install_deps() and install_dev_deps() inherit the documentation of the dependencies argument from remotes::install_deps(), which in turns inherits the documentation from remotes::package_deps(). I'm going to transfer this to remotes.

I'd say doing anything about this is a rather low-priority, since we regard remotes as semi-sunsetted in favour of pak and I don't think anyone is truly or often confused by this.

But to record the problem:

• Claiming that NA is the default is a problem for functions that inherit the docs for dependencies AND choose a different default (such as devtools::install_dev_deps()).
• It's also unfortunate that the docs talk about "just check this package". The word "check" makes the docs less reusable in functions that inherit.

[gaborcsardi]

In general it is pretty hard to optimize documentation in a way that it can be inherited into other packages, especially for arguments with such complex semantics as dependencies. We can fix this issue here, but it will be pretty hard to make sure that it is correct in other packages.