Design and Simulation R packages

[Laura Marshall]

Dear Distance Users,

As you likely know, we offer R packages for distance sampling survey

design and simulation, dssd and dsims respectively.  These are typically

available for download in R via the usual install.packages() function.

They get downloaded from a network of web sites, CRAN (Comprehensive R

Archive Network).  The purpose of this message is to let you know that

these two packages are temporarily only available from our development

repository (on a site called github).  You can install them using the devtools R library:

 install.packages("devtools")

 library(devtools)

 install_github("DistanceDevelopment/dssd", build_vignettes = TRUE)

 install_github("DistanceDevelopment/dsims", build_vignettes = TRUE)

We are working to get them back on CRAN as soon as possible.

For those interested in the nitty gritty, here are more details.

Please be reassured that both dssd and dsims continued to pass all CRAN

checks on both current R, old R and development R for all standard

setups for windows, mac, M1 mac and the various linux platforms.

CRAN also runs checks on more unusual setups and has detected that dssd

may generate some shape related errors if you are using alternative

BLAS/LAPACK implementations for more efficient linear algebra

calculations. The machine they tested was using R-devel in an x86_64

Fedora 34 Linux environment. Please do get in touch if you have come

across this issue as we are currently trying to replicate the error.

Best wishes,

Laura

Dr. L Marshall

Distance Development Team

Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling

University of St. Andrews

Tel: +44 (0)1334 461808