[Rd] DESCRIPTION.in file causes R CMD check to fail?

[Greg Minshall]

hi.  i'm building a package using autotools.  to propagate the package
version number from configure.ac to DESCRIPTION, i'm using a
DESCRIPTION.in file.  both of these files are "shar"'d below.

i need to distribute the DESCRIPTION.in file, as ./configure will need
it.  but, "R CMD check" wants to look at DESCRIPTION, so i've let that
also come into the package tarball.

however, when i run "R CMD check" with DESCRIPTION.in in the tree, it
fails:
----
bash greg-minshalls-mbp: {3359} R CMD check image2k_0.1.tar.gz 
* using log directory ‘/Users/minshall/src/mine/image2k/buildit/image2k.Rcheck’
* using R version 3.0.3 (2014-03-06)
* using platform: x86_64-apple-darwin13.1.0 (64-bit)
* using session charset: UTF-8
Error in if (desc["Priority"] == "base") { : 
  missing value where TRUE/FALSE needed
Execution halted
----

(whereas if i remove DESCRIPTION.in and recreate the tar file,
everything is good.)

are there any thoughts on what might be the problem?

cheers, Greg Minshall
----
# This is a shell archive.  Save it in a file, remove anything before
# this line, and then unpack it by entering "sh file".  Note, it may
# create directories; files and directories will be owned by you and
# have default permissions.
#
# This archive contains:
#
#       DESCRIPTION
#       DESCRIPTION.in
#
echo x - DESCRIPTION
sed 's/^X//' >DESCRIPTION << 'END-of-DESCRIPTION'
XPackage: image2k
XType: Package
XTitle: interface between pixmap and Imlib2 and/or MagickWand
XVersion: 0.1
XDate: 2014-06-24
XAuthor: Greg Minshall
XMaintainer: Greg Minshall <minshall at acm.org>
XDescription: image2k creates pixmaps from any image file that is
X  supported by the Imlib2 and/or MagickWand libraries (assuming one or
X  both of these libraries are available on your machine).  similarly,
X  given a pixmap, image2k can write that to an image file using either
X  Imlib2 and/or MagickWand.  (MagickWand is an optional library from
X  ImageMagick.)
XLicense: MIT + file LICENSE
XDepends: pixmap
END-of-DESCRIPTION
echo x - DESCRIPTION.in
sed 's/^X//' >DESCRIPTION.in << 'END-of-DESCRIPTION.in'
XPackage: image2k
XType: Package
XTitle: interface between pixmap and Imlib2 and/or MagickWand
XVersion: @VERSION@
XDate: 2014-06-24
XAuthor: Greg Minshall
XMaintainer: Greg Minshall <minshall at acm.org>
XDescription: image2k creates pixmaps from any image file that is
X  supported by the Imlib2 and/or MagickWand libraries (assuming one or
X  both of these libraries are available on your machine).  similarly,
X  given a pixmap, image2k can write that to an image file using either
X  Imlib2 and/or MagickWand.  (MagickWand is an optional library from
X  ImageMagick.)
XLicense: MIT + file LICENSE
XDepends: pixmap
END-of-DESCRIPTION.in
exit