From ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk  Thu May 10 09:13:27 2001
From: ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk (Prof Brian D Ripley)
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 09:13:27 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Rd] Package overview document?
In-Reply-To: <3AF97DAA.BBFC6FC7@bank-banque-canada.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.31.0105100909160.15706-100000@auk.stats>

On Wed, 9 May 2001, Paul Gilbert wrote:

> This came from deep in my unresolved pile:
> >>On Sun, 31 Dec 2000, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> >>> I'd like to write an overview of a package, and have it show up when
>
> >>> someone types
> >>>
> >>>  library(help=mypackage)
>   ...
> >>The problem is ensuring that you have a non-clashing name. dse1 has
> >>00General.Description which seems to me to be very likely to clash.
> ...
> >I think the most obvious choice of name is the name of the package,
> >but that would clash fairly often with the name of a function within
> >it (e.g. boot), and it wouldn't show up first in alphabetical lists.
>
> Is there yet any prescribed approach. If not, I would like to suggest
> 00General.Description.xxx  where xxx is replaced by the package name.
> The 00 is to put it near the beginning of the index, but there may be a
> better way.

Lot so unattributed quotes there ....

Note, things have changed since 2000 and functions.html is no longer built
(as from the next release).  So name clashes are less unimportant, and the
only place these names matter are in your own package unless you want

?00General.Description.dse1

to work.  (I really don't like the long name: what's wrong with
00Description or even 00Intro, the latter being the Unix man-pages
convention?)

However, for

library(help=mypackage)

the information should be in INDEX.  This is already done in several
packages, e.g. boot.


-- 
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] Package overview document?
Prof Brian D Ripley