My 0.02:
I use Misc.Rd for the purpose that Duncan suggests. I put things like
details and rationale for package
organization, pointers to the most important function(s) in the
package, and perhaps function descriptors
for ubiquitous functions that don't warrant their own helppage, but
need documentation [in
the case of gsl, this would be strictify() and process.args(), which
every user needs to know].
It would be *great* to be required to put in "package.gsl.R" (or
should that be "gsl.package.Rd"?)
for this purpose. Then maybe R CMD check could check for its presence
and throw a wobbly
if it isn't there.
Some packages have so much material that it's difficult to know where
the "meat" of the functionality lies,
and Duncan's suggestion would help greatly in these circumstances.
best wishes
rksh
On Jun 7, 2005, at 01:11 pm, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
Kurt Hornik wrote:
Henrik Bengtsson writes:
Hi,
I would like to suggest a standard where all packages provide an Rd
page with the same name (or aliased) as the name of package so that
help(<package name>) or ?<package name> is always here. This
especially of interest to large packages with a large package index.
This page could explain the package in general and gives some hints
on how to start - not like extensive vignettes, but just to get
started, e.g. list the "most important" functions. This page could
typically contain information that is in the DESCRIPTION file (which
contains valuable information hardly every accessed by a general
user), such as who is the maintainer, how to report bugs and so on.
I think this is a good idea. One minor problem is that for some
packages that topic name is already in use for a function (e.g. boot).
For that reason, I'd suggest that there *also* be an alias called
"package.<package name>", and the <package name> topic should link to
it.
How would this be different from the results of
help(package = <package name>)
?
1. It would work with ?, like other help topics.
2. It would give an overview. It's possible to do that in
DESCRIPTION or INDEX, but you don't get the same style as for other
help files (e.g. no links to other topics, at least in Windows).
We should work out what the topic headings should be and extend
package.skeleton() and prompt() to write a bare-bones file that
suggests the questions that need to be answered in the file. The
headings I'd suggest are:
\name
\title
\alias
\description (longer than the typical entry in the DESCRIPTION file)
\details (Should give a short guide to the main functions, should
point out the existence of external documentation like vignettes,
etc.)
\author (could also describe maintainer, if different)
\references
\seealso (Should give references to related packages)
\examples
\keywords
There is some duplication of material from DESCRIPTION, but usually
this should be longer and more reader-friendly than that file.
I'd be happy to write the description of this in R Extensions, and
write the changes to prompt(), if we have agreement that this file
should be mandatory in 2.2.x or 2.3.x, and you'll write the checks for
it. (I think the check should just be for existence of aliases
<package name> and package.<package name>, and could perhaps just give
a warning in 2.2.x.)
Duncan Murdoch
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