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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

sysreqr 0.2.0

New features

  • New gitlab_ci() generates a GitLab CI YAML job that installs the system packages a plan needs. GitLab CI jobs usually run as root inside a container image, so the commands are emitted without sudo.
  • The bundled fallback database now also covers igraph, rJava, jqr, odbc, av, rsvg, xslt, and protolite (40 curated packages in total).

Documentation

  • The README, the FAQ, and the setup, fundamentals, and Docker vignettes now describe distribution-native binary repositories that resolve system dependencies automatically: r2u (Ubuntu), cran2copr (Fedora), CRAN2OBS (openSUSE), and the bspm bridge, with a pointer to Ucar and Eddelbuettel (2021, arXiv:2103.08069). setup_advice() mentions r2u on Ubuntu and credits the cran2copr project on Fedora. Suggested by Dirk Eddelbuettel (#1).

Bug fixes

  • diagnose_log(), check_error(), and the other log-diagnosis helpers now report package names that match the platform’s package manager. Previously the direct log patterns always suggested apt names, so Fedora users were told to run dnf install -y libxml2-dev instead of dnf install -y libxml2-devel. Mapped names on non-apt platforms carry a note asking the user to verify the exact name on their distribution.
  • explain() no longer prints lines such as NA needs libxml2-dev. for diagnosis results that have no associated R package name; it now says libxml2-dev is needed. instead.
  • The internal JSON writer no longer double-escapes newline, carriage return, and tab characters, and now escapes backspace, form feed, and the remaining control characters, so written JSON always parses back to the original strings.
  • The internal JSON parser now validates \u escape sequences (rejecting truncated escapes) and decodes UTF-16 surrogate pairs, so characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane survive parsing. Unpaired surrogates are rejected.
  • Generated shell commands, Dockerfile snippets, and CI snippets drop system package names that contain unexpected characters (with a warning) instead of pasting them into the command line.
  • Posit Package Manager requirements that consist only of post-install commands (for example R CMD javareconf) now keep their row in the plan.
  • detect_platform() now reports Alpine hosts as supported, matching resolve_platform("alpine-3.20") and the documented platform list.
  • use_ppm() documentation no longer claims that scope selects which .Rprofile is edited; path is always required for writing, and the error message now suggests a scope-appropriate path.

sysreqr 0.1.0

CRAN release: 2026-06-11

First public release.

Preflight checks

  • check_packages() resolves the system packages an R package needs on a given Linux platform. Four backends are available: "auto" (default), "bundled", "ppm", and "pak".
  • check_library() audits installed packages in an R library path.
  • check_project() and detect_project_packages() scan a project directory, preferring renv.lock, then DESCRIPTION, then source files.

Platform handling

  • detect_platform() reads /etc/os-release on Linux, sw_vers on macOS, and parses fixture files for tests.
  • detect_package_manager() returns the package manager for a platform (apt, dnf, yum, zypper, apk, brew).
  • resolve_platform() accepts NULL, an existing platform object, <distro>-<version> shorthand, or a codename alias (jammy, noble, resolute, bookworm, trixie).

Commands and outputs

Diagnostics

Posit Package Manager

Setup guidance

  • setup_advice() produces a practical, beginner-friendly Linux setup checklist with optional shell-script output.
  • explain() prints a friendly per-package explanation.

Documentation

  • Five HTML vignettes: preflight setup, diagnosing failures, GNU/Linux fundamentals (for newcomers to Linux), Docker and CI workflows, and an FAQ.
  • Every exported function has a runnable example.
  • Reference index grouped by topic on the pkgdown site.

Correctness and portability

  • Bundled system-package names are now portable across Debian and Ubuntu: default-libmysqlclient-dev (was libmysqlclient-dev, which does not exist on Debian), libgsl-dev (was libgsl0-dev), and libfreetype-dev (was libfreetype6-dev).
  • detect_project_packages() now detects requireNamespace() calls and ignores package names that appear only in line comments.
  • setup_advice() generates Debian repository setup using the modern deb822 Signed-By keyring format (matching CRAN’s current Debian instructions), drops a no-op Fedora repoquery line, and presents the Fedora COPR step as optional.
  • Added AlmaLinux 9 and 10 as known platforms so ppm_repo() and check_ppm() work for them.
  • The internal JSON parser now rejects unescaped control characters, per the JSON specification.

Design notes

  • sysreqr has zero required dependencies: no Imports, no Depends beyond base R. The Suggests field lists testthat, knitr, rmarkdown, and withr, used only for tests and vignette building; none of them are loaded at run time.
  • Optional live backends can use Posit Package Manager (over HTTPS) and pak::pkg_sysreqs(), both of which are detected at run time and never required.
  • The package ships a static bundled database of system requirements for common CRAN packages. The database is refreshed with each release. Use backend = "ppm" or backend = "pak" when newer live metadata is needed.