R help - Dec 1998 - help files for libraries that aren't in the defaults library tree

Hello,

I created a library for a bunch of functions that I use frequently
so that I dont have to carry duplicate copies around to wherever I fire
up an R sesssion.  However, I have problems locating the help files
for those functions.  Here are some details.

I created the library "myR" and installed this in /home/royle/R
using:

R INSTALL -l /home/royle/R /home/royle/Rpackages/myR

This went well, and I can access all of those functions in the
usual way....i.e. like:

 library(myR,lib.loc="/home/royle/R/")


But, I found that to get the help files I have to type:

 help(interp,lib.loc="/home/royle/R/")

and so it is kind of a pain to have to specify the lib.loc argument
every time I want to see a help file (not like I need to see the
help files because I wrote the functions, but I can imagine this
to be a pain for anyone who installs a package into a library tree
other than the defaults).

In any case, I went on an installed the library in $RHOME/library
and everything seems to work out ok.  But, I think that generally
one would need root access to install to RHOME/library and so folks
might be inclined to install elsewhere.

The question: is there a way to make these help files accessible 
when installed in a something other than the default library tree 
_without_ using the lib.loc option in help? 

Possible solution: It seems to me that I could add my new library tree 
to .lib.loc but wouldn't I have to create a new .lib.loc in every R session?


Thanks in advance for assistance.

andy







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>>>>> "J" == J Andy Royle <jar at
oriole.er.usgs.gov> writes:
    J> Hello, I created a library for a bunch of functions that I use
    J> frequently so that I dont have to carry duplicate copies around to
    J> wherever I fire up an R sesssion.  However, I have problems locating
    J> the help files for those functions.  Here are some details.

    J> I created the library "myR" and installed this in
/home/royle/R
    J> using:

    J> R INSTALL -l /home/royle/R /home/royle/Rpackages/myR

    J> This went well, and I can access all of those functions in the usual
    J> way....i.e. like:

    J>  library(myR,lib.loc="/home/royle/R/")


    J> But, I found that to get the help files I have to type:

    J>  help(interp,lib.loc="/home/royle/R/")

    J> and so it is kind of a pain .....
	.........

    J> The question: is there a way to make these help files accessible
    J> when installed in a something other than the default library tree
    J> _without_ using the lib.loc option in help?

    J> Possible solution: It seems to me that I could add my new library
    J> tree to .lib.loc but wouldn't I have to create a new .lib.loc in
    J> every R session?

The online help [?.lib.loc  or ?library ..]
gives the solution:
>>   `.lib.loc' is a character vector with the
>>      locations of all library trees that R should use.  It
>>      is initialized at startup from the environment variable
>>      `RLIBS', which should be a colon-separated list of
>>      directories at which R library trees are rooted, and
>>      `.Library'.
So,

1) in a  [t]csh environment, you'd write in your  ~/.login

	setenv RLIBS /home/royle/R

2) in  [ba|k]sh	environment, you'd have in your ~/.profile

	RLIBS=/home/royle/R  export RLIBS

---
Martin





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> "J" == J Andy Royle <jar@oriole.er.usgs.gov> writes:
>I created the library "myR" and installed this in /home/royle/R
>using:
>R INSTALL -l /home/royle/R   /home/royle/Rpackages/myR
The installation of (at least html) documentation for private libraries does not
work properly in 0.63.  (If r-devel is not aware of this the problem is that
R/doc/html/function.html and R/doc/html/packages.html get clobbered.)

If you do:

R INSTALL   myR

in the subdirectory /home/royle/Rpackages then the package will be installed in
the directory with other R packages and the documentation will be installed
correctly. (This assumes you have write permission on that directory.)

Paul Gilbert

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