According to the release notes for 2.15:

There are new options for more rigorous testing by R CMD check selected by environment variables – see the ‘Writing R Extensions’ manual.

1. Is "more rigorous" relative to the default set of checks?
2. I can't find the supporting text in the manual. I'm sure I'm just missing it
3. What options do I specify to perform the MOST rigorous testing?

• r
• cran

It seems that:

1. YES, 'more rigorous' is relative to a default set of checks. The default checks do not test everything that can be tested.

2. The most rigorous way to test is to specify all possible tests via config file values in check.Renviron (see R Internals and Writing R Plugins manuals)

3. There is no easy way (i.e. command-line parameter) to check it all. A package author would have to maintain a config file (check.Renviron) as new versions of R are released.

Try R CMD check --as-cran foo_1.2-3.tar.gz

The new --as-cran option gathers a few of these together; this was discussed on r-devel.

Also, a few weeks before R 2.15.0 came out, I added this to ~/.R/check.Renviron. These are documented in the 'R Internals' manual:

# See R Internals manual
_R_CHECK_CRAN_INCOMING_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_FORCE_SUGGESTS_=FALSE
_R_CHECK_VC_DIRS_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_UNSAFE_CALLS_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_TIMINGS_=10
_R_CHECK_INSTALL_DEPENDS_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_SUGGESTS_ONLY_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_NO_RECOMMENDED_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_SUBDIRS_NOCASE_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_EXECUTABLES_EXCLUSIONS_=FALSE
_R_CHECK_LICENSE_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_DOC_SIZES2_=TRUE
_R_CHECK_CODETOOLS_PROFILE_='suppressPartialMatchArgs=false'
#
_R_CHECK_VIGNETTES_NLINES_=50
_R_CHECK_DOT_INTERNAL_=TRUE