[ci] Add CI job running rchk on the R package (fixes #4400) (#4449)

* [ci] add CI job running rchk

* try commenting out more stuff

* ignore R internal error

* pipes

* remove PROTECT()

* try removing testthat

* revert temporary testing changes

.ci/test.sh

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ elif [[ $OS_NAME == "linux" ]] && [[ $COMPILER == "clang" ]]; then
     export CC=clang
 fi
 
-if [[ "${TASK}" == "r-package" ]]; then
+if [[ "${TASK}" == "r-package" ]] || [[ "${TASK}" == "r-rchk" ]]; then
     bash ${BUILD_DIRECTORY}/.ci/test_r_package.sh || exit -1
     exit 0
 fi

.ci/test_r_package.sh

@@ -94,7 +94,12 @@ fi
 
 # Manually install Depends and Imports libraries + 'testthat'
 # to avoid a CI-time dependency on devtools (for devtools::install_deps())
-packages="c('data.table', 'jsonlite', 'Matrix', 'R6', 'testthat')"
+# NOTE: testthat is not required when running rchk
+if [[ "${TASK}" == "r-rchk" ]]; then
+    packages="c('data.table', 'jsonlite', 'Matrix', 'R6')"
+else
+    packages="c('data.table', 'jsonlite', 'Matrix', 'R6', 'testthat')"
+fi
 compile_from_source="both"
 if [[ $OS_NAME == "macos" ]]; then
     packages+=", type = 'binary'"
@@ -130,6 +135,28 @@ elif [[ $R_BUILD_TYPE == "cran" ]]; then
 
     ./build-cran-package.sh || exit -1
 
+    if [[ "${TASK}" == "r-rchk" ]]; then
+        echo "Checking R package with rchk"
+        mkdir -p packages
+        cp ${PKG_TARBALL} packages
+        RCHK_LOG_FILE="rchk-logs.txt"
+        docker run \
+            -v $(pwd)/packages:/rchk/packages \
+            kalibera/rchk:latest \
+            "/rchk/packages/${PKG_TARBALL}" \
+        2>&1 > ${RCHK_LOG_FILE} \
+        || (cat ${RCHK_LOG_FILE} && exit -1)
+        cat ${RCHK_LOG_FILE}
+
+        # the exception below is from R itself and not LightGBM:
+        # https://github.com/kalibera/rchk/issues/22#issuecomment-656036156
+        exit $(
+            cat ${RCHK_LOG_FILE} \
+            | grep -v "in function strptime_internal" \
+            | grep --count -E '\[PB\]|ERROR'
+        )
+    fi
+
     # Test CRAN source .tar.gz in a directory that is not this repo or below it.
     # When people install.packages('lightgbm'), they won't have the LightGBM
     # git repo around. This is to protect against the use of relative paths

.github/workflows/r_package.yml

@@ -123,6 +123,14 @@ jobs:
             compiler: clang
             r_version: 4.0
             build_type: cran
+          ################
+          # Other checks #
+          ################
+          - os: ubuntu-latest
+            task: r-rchk
+            compiler: gcc
+            r_version: 4.0
+            build_type: cran
     steps:
       - name: Prevent conversion of line endings on Windows
         if: startsWith(matrix.os, 'windows')