Filenames can be too long on Windows

[wch]

We are trying to use pak to install dependencies for shiny in GitHub Actions. One of these dependencies is bslib, and it fails to build/install with pak. (rstudio/shiny#3230 (comment))

I think the problem is that some filenames are longer than the max length on typical Windows installations.

I think this is the directory where pak tries to unzip the files:

C:\\Users\\RUNNER~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\Rtmp4K8oTQ\\file10406c64986/src/contrib/bslib_0.2.3.9000_338b05fc5aa551c0cb62dae2ce73ad8c2ceb8403.tar.gz-tree

And inside of that, it wants to write the following file:

rstudio-bslib-338b05f/inst/lib/bootstrap-accessibility-plugin/plugins/js/bootstrap-accessibility_1.0.3.min.js

It fails on that file: https://github.com/rstudio/shiny/runs/1597854296?check_suite_focus=true#step:10:376

The total length of the combined path is 263 characters, which I believe is longer than the max filename length on Windows.

This isn't exactly a bug in pak, but does mean that pak can't be used for GitHub actions on packages that use bslib. The filename in bslib is pretty long, but not crazily long. We could shorten it, but I suspect that other packages would run into the same problem.

[gaborcsardi]

As a workaround you can try setting the TMPDIR env var to a shorter path.

[gaborcsardi]

The unzipping part will be solved by r-lib/zip#63, but there might be other issues when using the unzipped files to do R CMD build and then R CMD INSTALL.

Hopefully the final unzip is OK, that is done by unzip.exe, so it'll be harder to fix.

[wch]

For future reference, here's the change that I made to our workflow to create the temp directory and use it when pak installs the dependencies: 72fd90c (#3230)

This is the diff:

--- a/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml
@@ -79,6 +79,14 @@ jobs:
           brew install cairo
           brew install harfbuzz fribidi
 
+      # Use a shorter temp directory for pak installations, due to filename
+      # length issues on Windows. https://github.com/r-lib/pak/issues/252
+      - name: Windows temp dir
+        if: runner.os == 'Windows'
+        run: |
+          New-Item -Path "C:\" -Name "tmp" -ItemType Directory
+          echo "TMPDIR=c:\tmp" | Out-File -FilePath $env:GITHUB_ENV -Encoding utf8 -Append
+
       - name: Install dependencies
         run: |
           pak::pkg_install("curl") # install before installing deps

[jimhester]

r-lib/zip#63 should be fixed in the devel version of zip I believe.

[gaborcsardi]

We can give it a shot then. I am fairly sure that we'll still get (different) errors with pak, because it'll try to R CMD build and R CMD INSTALL the same path. But I'll give it a try.

[gaborcsardi]

Just experimented with #268, and apparently, dev zip still has an issue with long path names. Will work on zip now to solve this.

[gaborcsardi]

r-lib/zip#71 seems to fix the unzip issue. But then there are other issues, with R CMD build:

x Failed to create source package thematic 0.1.1.9000 (17m 0.5s)
(############ ) | [BLD]  34/35 - 1 | [INS]  34/35     | building thematic
Error: Failed to create source package 'thematic' from source tree 'C:\\Users\\csard\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\RtmpOIwDlH\\file5a64747d3a96/src/contrib/thematic_0.1.1.9000_03b8c7b8e762a3a21c6aacbe71ea183433240182.tar.gz-tree', stdout + stderr (last 10 lines):

OE> Warning in file.copy(pkgname, Tdir, recursive = TRUE, copy.date = TRUE) :
OE>   problem copying .\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-mac\001.json to C:\Users\csard\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpk3TsBP\Rbuild721016831e56\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-mac\001.json: No such file or directory
OE> Warning in file.copy(pkgname, Tdir, recursive = TRUE, copy.date = TRUE) :
OE>   problem copying .\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-mac\001.png to C:\Users\csard\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpk3TsBP\Rbuild721016831e56\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-mac\001.png: No such file or directory
OE> Warning in file.copy(pkgname, Tdir, recursive = TRUE, copy.date = TRUE) :
OE>   problem copying .\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-win\001.json to C:\Users\csard\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpk3TsBP\Rbuild721016831e56\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-win\001.json: No such file or directory
OE> Warning in file.copy(pkgname, Tdir, recursive = TRUE, copy.date = TRUE) :
OE>   problem copying .\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-win\001.png to C:\Users\csard\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmpk3TsBP\Rbuild721016831e56\rstudio-thematic-03b8c7b\tests\testthat\auto_theme_shiny\with_theme\tests\shinytest\mytest-expected-win\001.png: No such file or directory
OE>  ERROR
OE> copying to build directory failed

[gaborcsardi]

While some workarounds are possible, e.g. mapping the directory to a drive, or using a symlink, it does not seem that we can reliable fix R CMD build, especially on older Windows versions.

What we can do is

• use shorter paths, so at least less packages fail
• have a better error message for the failures

[gaborcsardi]

Actually, I'll try to work around it using a junction.