R help - Apr 2010 - R package documentation

Dear R users,

I am currently writing the documentation for my first package. I have
created a short user manual using sweave/pdflatex which is distinct from the
manual/summary-of-package-functions created by R CMD CHECK. I was wondering
how could I seamlessly combine both documents.

Thanks for your help

Sebastien

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Hi S?bastien,

S?bastien Bihorel wrote:
> I am currently writing the documentation for my first package. I have
> created a short user manual using sweave/pdflatex which is distinct from
the
> manual/summary-of-package-functions created by R CMD CHECK. I was wondering
> how could I seamlessly combine both documents.
It is common to have
- technical documentation in your .Rd files (in the man/ directory
     of your package)
- functional documentation as a so-called vignette (Sweave file
     documenting concrete use of your package) in the
     inst/doc directory of your package.

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Writing-package-vignettes

Combining both documents into one file is not common.

I hope this helps,
Tobias

pomchip wrote:
> 
> Dear R users,
> 
> I am currently writing the documentation for my first package. I have
> created a short user manual using sweave/pdflatex which is distinct from
> the
> manual/summary-of-package-functions created by R CMD CHECK. I was
> wondering
> how could I seamlessly combine both documents.
> 
> Thanks for your help
> 
> Sebastien
> 
The .Rd files are normally kept separate from the vignette- this is because
Rd files have to be translated into several different formats such as html,
man pages and pdf.  The vignette allows for a more free-form discussion as
it does not have the rigid structure that allows .Rd files to be translated.

That being said, you could add the contents of .Rd files to something like
an appendix in your vignette by converting the .Rd files to .tex and
including them in your Sweave source.  Something like the following would
convert each .Rd file and append it to a single .tex file (on UNIX/Linux
systems):

  cd yourPackage/man
  ls *.Rd | xargs -I % R CMD Rdconv -t latex % >> manPages.tex

You could then move manPages.tex to yourPackage/inst/doc and include int in
your Sweave source via \input{}.  You will need to ensure
$R_HOME/share/texmf is on your tex search path as the LaTeX compiler will
need Rd.sty to define some of the macros in the code produced by R CMD
Rdconv.

Hope this helps!

-Charlie

-----
Charlie Sharpsteen
Undergraduate-- Environmental Resources Engineering
Humboldt State University
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