renv::status() shold not give "out-of-sync" warning when additional packages have been captured with renv::snapshot(type = "all")

[eastclintw00d]

In my project it is sometimes necessary to capture more packages in the renv.lock than I currently use in my existing scripts. For example, when I already know that I will use additional packages in the near future. For this I use renv::snapshot(type = "all").

In renv::status() I get a warning that the project is out-of-sync. In my opinion this unnecessary, at least at start-up. The check should rather be if all packages versions match the lock file.

[hadley]

Can you please include the message that you are seeing?

[eastclintw00d]

This is the message after restarting R:

Restarting R session...

* Project '~/my-project' loaded. [renv 0.17.3]
Registered S3 method overwritten by 'quantmod':
  method            from
  as.zoo.data.frame zoo 
Loading required package: RPostgres
* The project is currently out-of-sync.
* Use `renv::status()` for more details.

But renv::status() only returns packages that are installed and recorded in renv.lock but are currently not used. Of that I am already aware because I accepted this by calling renv::snapshot(type = "all") and I would prefer not being notified after every session restart. I would rather get notified if anything deviates from the renv.lock file.

Here is the output of renv::status():

> renv::status()
The following packages are recorded in the lockfile, but do not appear to be used in this project:
                  _
  KernSmooth        [2.23-20]
  boot              [1.3-28.1]
  brew              [1.0-8]
  class             [7.3-21]
  cluster           [2.1.4]
  codetools         [0.2-19]
  credentials       [1.3.2]
  devtools          [2.4.5]
  downlit           [0.4.2]
  foreign           [0.8-84]
  gert              [1.9.2]
  gh                [1.4.0]
  gitcreds          [0.1.2]
  httr2             [0.2.2]
  ini               [0.3.1]
  miniUI            [0.1.1.1]
  nnet              [7.3-18]
  pkgbuild          [1.4.0]
  pkgdown           [2.0.7]
  profvis           [0.3.7]
  rcmdcheck         [1.4.0]
  reactablefmtr     [2.0.0]
  remotes           [2.4.2]
  rhandsontable     [0.3.8]
  roxygen2          [7.2.3]
  rpart             [4.1.19]
  rversions         [2.1.2]
  sessioninfo       [1.2.2]
  shinyBS           [0.61.1]
  shinycssloaders   [1.0.0]
  shinydashboard    [0.7.2]
  spatial           [7.3-16]
  survival          [3.5-5]
  tippy             [0.1.0]
  urlchecker        [1.0.1]
  usethis           [2.1.6]
  webshot           [0.5.4]
  whisker           [0.4.1]
  xopen             [1.0.0]
  zip               [2.3.0]

Use `renv::snapshot()` if you'd like to remove these packages from the lockfile.

[hadley]

Do you still see the same problem if you register "all" as the default snapshot type?

renv::settings$snapshot.type("all")

[eastclintw00d]

No. The out-of-sync notification does not appear if I set the snapshot default to "all". I guess it working as intended then.

Closing this issue.

[torbjorn]

Hope its ok if I reopen this.

I typically don't use snapshot type as a permanent thing. Sometimes I have added a bunch of packages and want them all in the lock file. Other times I have temporarily installed packages that I dont really want in the lock file, but might still find it useful to do an implicit snapshot.

In general I find type="all" a default I do not want, and hence a config setting I do not want to set, for the fear of eventually loosing control of my library (not to say the lock file doesnt need pruning every now and then)

In another issue I mentiong ggplot2/svglite , how ggsave lets you save svg files if you have svglite installed. Though this is not a dependency. So the moment I have type="implicit" in my config (the default), renv::status() will now forever report the repo is out of sync due to the precence of svglite. And thus status() for most intents and purposes has lost all value.

(Yes, I could library(svglite) in a single file somewhere, which admitadly isnt that much of a hazzle)

But could renv::status() instead be configured on a project level to ignore extra installed packages as a default? at least the startup renv::status?. I dont like having to tell new users to ignore the out of sync warning. They will now ignore it also when it is something they should have picked up.

[kevinushey]

@torbjorn, at least for that specific issue, I'd like to see if it's possible for renv to detect if svglite would be required in a particular project. I suspect we could analyze calls to ggsave() and see if device = "svg" or if the path has a .svg extension? This could fail if such paths are just stored as variables, though, since the static analysis machinery isn't that smart.