Troubles with rstan_package_skeleton()

Interfaces
1

I’m trying to create an R package that will have precompiled Stan models in it, working in RStudio. I followed the instructions for rstan_package_skeleton(), but when I do dev_tools::load_all(".") or dev_tools::document() I get the error message

Error in is(module, "character") : object 'm' not found

I have no idea what this even means, much less what to do about it. Any idea?

There’s not much in the package yet – just a data set, its documentation, and a script to create it.

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.13.6 (High Sierra)
Interface Version: rstantools 1.5.1, rstan 2.17.4
Compiler/Toolkit:

2

I think this failure is due to not having any Stan programs yet. Once those exist and are under src/stan_models then the .onLoad() function in the R/zzz.R file will work with the R/stanmodels.R file to create those modules and then loop over m to load them.

3

More specifically, the new version of roxygen2 is now trying to call load_all on the code in order to build the documentation, but this fails when there are no Stan programs.

4

I added one Stan model, and the result is that devtools::install(local=FALSE) succeeds, but devtools::load_all(".") and devtools::document() still faile with the “object ‘m’ not found” error.

5

Not too surprising. We are working on getting a rstantools release that is compatible with Stan 2.18.

6

I’m confused. RStan is only up to version 2.17.4, which I understood to correspond to Stan 2.17.x, not 2.18.

7

2.18 is on CRAN but there are no binaries yet for Windows version 3.5

8

I’m seeing this problem both with RStan 2.17.4 and RStan 2.18.1, even though I have a “.stan” source file. With RStan 2.18.1 I now find that devtools::install(local=FALSE) doesn’t work – I get the same “object 'm' not found” error.

I need to get this package built one way or another, but I am now completely blocked by this problem. What sort of workarounds are there?

9

Hmmm, turns out that devtools::install failed because I was generating my .stan file. After redoing my mods to Makevars to ensure that the generated files stick around long enough, devtools::install worked.

10 
remotes::install_github("stan-dev/rstantools", ref = "mlysy-rstantools_patch", 
                        build_opts = " ")

which will be something like the next rstantools release.