From ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk  Tue Jun 12 15:35:53 2001
From: ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk (Prof Brian D Ripley)
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 15:35:53 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Rd] help(PackageName)
In-Reply-To: <x2puc9re1j.fsf@blueberry.kubism.ku.dk>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.31.0106121533180.19406-100000@auk.stats>

On 12 Jun 2001, Peter Dalgaard BSA wrote:

> Martin Schlather <Martin.Schlather@uni-bayreuth.de> writes:
>
> > Dear R Core Team,
> >
> > I'm wondering whether it is useful that every package should allow
> > for help(PackageName), giving some general information about the
> > package (more/nicer than library(help=PackageName)). This man page
> > may include some mathematical or statistical background, or contain
> > a guideline for the package.
>
> help(nlme) would be ambiguous then.
>
> help(package=nlme) already works, same as library(help=nlme).
>
> I suppose we could make it a convention to have each package contain
> an Overview entry so that help(Overview, package=nlme) would do what
> you want (or even help(Overview, nlme) if we switch the arguments
> around), but someone would have to write those pages....

Meanwhile (and with a new help system planned, I mean until that is
onstream), you will find discussion of this topic in the R-devel archives,
and should note that several packages already use INDEX for this purpose.
Try

library(help=boot)

for one.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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[Rd] help(PackageName)
Prof Brian D Ripley