keep source without recompiling ?

[moodymudskipper]

I would love to be able to see original formatting and comments for every package I install.

This can be done by installing from source with "--with-keep.source" :

install.packages(package,  type = "source", INSTALL_opts = c("--with-keep.source"))`

But installing from source takes forever in some cases, so I don't love it as a default.

Would there be a way to install from binary, yet fetch the code from the .tar.gz. and have the code available at a minor installation cost?

Nowadays disk space is cheap enough, it doesn't make a lot of sense anymore to strip the source of IMO, so this might even be the default?

[gaborcsardi]

Seems like this is possible:

src <- "f <- function() 1+\n2+\n3"
eval(parse(text = src, keep.source = FALSE))
e <- new.env()
eval(parse(text = src, keep.source = TRUE), envir = e)
f2 <- e$f

f
#> function () 
#> 1 + 2 + 3
f2
#> function() 1+
#> 2+
#> 3
#> <environment: 0x13b9dd048>

f <- compiler::cmpfun(f)
.Internal(bodyCode(f))
#> <bytecode: 0x13ccb33d0>

attr(f, "srcref") <- attr(f2, "srcref")
.Internal(bodyCode(f))
#> <bytecode: 0x13ccb33d0>
f
#> function() 1+
#> 2+
#> 3
#> <bytecode: 0x13ccb33d0>

^{Created on 2025-03-08 with reprex v2.1.0}

I don't know where the source code is stored in the installed package, though.

It is not really clear to me how we would add the source references to all functions (S4, R6 class methods, etc.) systematically.