Missing `xclip` causes my package build to fail

[TanguyBarthelemy]

Hi,

I would like to build my package TBox (https://tanguybarthelemy.r-universe.dev/TBox and https://github.com/TanguyBarthelemy/TBox) with r-universe. But I got some errors when it tries to build the binaries:

My package relies on the R package clipr which relies on xclip or xsel for Linux distributions (see readme https://github.com/mdlincoln/clipr).

So to build with a GHA my packages I used the same configuration as clipr.

in clipr:

https://github.com/mdlincoln/clipr/blob/d14fc11f37c7ea90e1598fab9b597634f77376d9/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml#L70-L90

in TBox:

https://github.com/TanguyBarthelemy/TBox/blob/7b408d2e4fd5ee0e7521124a1251b95d6939dfe0/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml#L41-L56

In the r-universe build, I get the error:

Error: Clipboard on X11 requires 'xclip' (recommended) or 'xsel';

https://github.com/r-universe/tanguybarthelemy/actions/runs/9389973866/job/25858803484#step:4:356

So how can I configure the r-universe GHA to build my package with the needed Linux package installations?

Also my package need pandoc, rmarkdown and xelatex to build pdf output so for other OS (windows, Mac-OS), the build fails too:

https://github.com/r-universe/tanguybarthelemy/actions/runs/9389973866/job/25858805209#step:5:413 https://github.com/r-universe/tanguybarthelemy/actions/runs/9389973866/job/25858802916#step:5:400

Can I configure it too?

Thank you very much!

[jeroen]

Your package did succeed to build, but it fails to run an example in the check. But it was still published including binaries for all platforms, the check is just informative.

It is better to not assume all users and server have xelatex... I suggest you skip the example if those tools are not found. For example:

has_xelatex <- function(){
  nchar(Sys.which("xelatex")) > 0
}

[TanguyBarthelemy]

Thank you very much! Of course the built packages are in the r-universe, I thought red icon meant errors...

I will correct this xelatex configuration to build a pdf even if the user uses pdflatex or lualatex.

[jeroen]

Yes the red means test errors (not build errors) those are different :) I added xclip to the linux image but it did not fix that issue.

[TanguyBarthelemy]

Yes the remaining error is because you need to add an environment variable DISPLAY as here:

https://github.com/TanguyBarthelemy/TBox/blob/7b408d2e4fd5ee0e7521124a1251b95d6939dfe0/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml#L32

[jeroen]

We're running an xvbf server on :6 and have DISPLAY set but that does not seem to help.

Perhaps you need to add a check if DISPLAY is set and give an informative error if not?

What about these lines. Should you perhaps run those in your package startup ?

[TanguyBarthelemy]

Yes, you may be right. But couldn't this generate an error for users who don't have xclip and xvfb installed?

I could perhaps add a clipr::clipr_available() test to ensure that the tools are installed and generate an error (with clipr::dr_clipr()).

I'll have a look at how to set this up:

• only for Linux users
• whether or not to install xclip and xvfb
• set up xclip with the env variable DISPLAY and the lines

[jeroen]

I think you should let the setup of xvfb (and DISPLAY) to the user because on Linux desktop systems we use regular X and it should be working without xvfb.

So perhaps what you can do on Linux is check for the presence of the DISPLAY variable (and give a warning/error if it is not set) and also test if xclip is available. I have no idea what those other lines do, but if it is general setup may be run them in your .onLoad() function.

[jeroen]

Closing this issue now because I think there is nothing else we can do on the r-universe side of things.