I've spent long enough on this problem that I thought I'd make a post about it.
Using devtools to develop R packages is really a must.
I generated my new package with the usual command :
usethis::create_package(proj_path)
Then I started working on the contents. Editing the DESCRIPTION file, adding R code in the R/ folder and documenting with Roxygen.
Once I had some basic things put down, I wanted to check my work by documenting/building the package so I ran
devtools::document(proj_path)
and got the following error
Error in read.dcf(path_desc) : Line starting 'This corresponds to ...' is malformed!
That's it, no info on what caused the error.
I never wrote anything even close to "This corresponds to" in my doc.
The closest thing to this error I found is this issue on github, which has the same type of Error in read.dcf( idea, but this did not help my case.
The clue to this error is in the desc part of the Error in read.dcf(path_desc).
This alludes to the DESCRIPTION file of the package.
When I substituted the DESCRIPTION file for a brand new template one, the package compiled fine. Specifically, my issue came from the "Description" field of the file.
I forgot a tabulation when inserting a new line. The erroneous file read:
Description: blabla
blabla
Adding the tabulation like so:
Description: blabla
blabla
fixes the problem.