optional check on dependency on R version

git-svn-id: https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk@73884 00db46b3-68df-0310-9c12-caf00c1e9a41

doc/manual/R-ints.texi

@@ -4151,6 +4151,12 @@ Default: false (but true for CRAN submission checks).
 @item _R_CHECK_PRAGMAS_
 Run additional checks on the pragmas in C/C++ source code and headers.
 Default: false (but true for CRAN submission checks).
+
+@item _R_CHECK_R_DEPENDS_
+Check that any dependence on R is not on a recent patch-level version
+such as @code{R (>= 3.3.3)} since blocking installation of a package
+will also block its reverse dependencies.
+Default: false (but will be activated in future).
 @end vtable
 
 CRAN's submission checks use something like

src/library/tools/R/check.R

@@ -867,6 +867,24 @@ setRlibs <-
             printLog0(Log, paste(out, collapse = "\n"), "\n")
         }
 
+        ## Dependence on say R >= 3.4.3 when 3.4 is current can
+        ## cause problems with revdeps (and did for 3.2.x).
+        ## We only check recent ones.
+        if(config_val_to_logical(Sys.getenv("_R_CHECK_R_DEPENDS_", "FALSE"))) {
+            Rver <-.split_description(db, verbose = TRUE)$Rdepends2
+            if(length(Rver) && Rver[[1L]]$op == ">=") {
+                ver <- unclass(Rver[[1L]]$version)[[1L]]
+                if (length(ver) == 3L && ver[3L] != 0 &&
+                    ((ver[1L] > 3L) ||
+                     (ver[1L] == 3L) && (ver[2L] >= 3L) )) {
+                    if(!any) noteLog(Log)
+                    any <- TRUE
+                    printLog0(Log,
+                              sprintf("Dependence on R version %s not with patchlevel 0\n",
+                                      sQuote(format(Rver[[1L]]$version))))
+              }
+            }
+        }
         if (!any) resultLog(Log, "OK")
     }