Is R CMD check (devtools:check()) with keep.source = TRUE possible?

Question

I'm writing unit tests using testthat to check some operations and these operations needs objects with srcref attribute. srcref attribute is added if during the package installation / building option keep.source was set to TRUE.

I see all my tests fail when using devtools::check() if those tests expect srcref attribute for object. This not happens when tests are performed interactively, i.e. using devtools:test(). What could I do to keep these tests, run it and make them pass using devtools::check()? I have tried devtools::check(args = "--with-keep.source") but this argument is not recognized.

I'm using rlang::pkg_env("my-package") to get objects with srcref attribute, so tests look like this:

testthat("my example works", {
  expect_true(!is.null(get_srcref_for_some_object(names(rlang::pkg_env("my-package")))))
})

Answer 1

The option --with-keep.source is for R CMD INSTALL, not R CMD check. To make sure that check preserves sources when it installs your package, you need to run

R CMD check /path/to/tarball --install-args=--with-keep.source

in a shell or

devtools::check("path/to/package", args = "--install-args=--with-keep.source")

in R.

Minimal reproducible example

pkgname <- "foo"
usethis::create_package(pkgname, rstudio = FALSE, open = FALSE)
setwd(pkgname)
usethis::use_testthat()
text <- "
#' @title A title
#' @description A description.
#' @param a,b Arguments.
#' @examples
#' x <- add(1, 1)
#' @export
add <- function(a, b) a + b
"
cat(text, file = file.path("R", "add.R"))
devtools::document(".")
text <- "
test_that(\"sources kept\", {
  expect_false(is.null(attr(add, \"srcref\")))
})
"
cat(text, file = file.path("tests", "testthat", "test-add.R"))

devtools::check(".")

─  checking tests ...
─  Running ‘testthat.R’ (357ms)
E  Some test files failed
   Running the tests in ‘tests/testthat.R’ failed.
   Last 13 lines of output:
     > library(foo)
     > 
     > test_check("foo")
     [ FAIL 1 | WARN 0 | SKIP 0 | PASS 0 ]
     
     ══ Failed tests ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
     ── Failure (test-add.R:3:3): sources kept ──────────────────────────────────────
     is.null(attr(add, "srcref")) is not FALSE
     
     `actual`:   TRUE 
     `expected`: FALSE
     
     [ FAIL 1 | WARN 0 | SKIP 0 | PASS 0 ]
     Error: Test failures
     Execution halted

devtools::check(".", args = "--install-args=--with-keep.source")

─  checking tests ...
✓  Running ‘testthat.R’

Clean

setwd("..")
unlink(pkgname, recursive = TRUE)