[Rd] Checking package help file examples

[Bill Dunlap]

I am trying to figure out the sanctioned way for
'R CMD check pkg' to make sure that the examples
in help files give the expected results.

Writing R Extensions says that check runs the help
file examples (which INSTALL extracts from pkg/man/*.Rd
and puts into files in pkg/R-ex).  It looks like check
concatenates all the example files, pkg/R-ex/*.R, into one
file, pkg/pkg-Ex.R, which it runs to produce pkg/pkg-Ex.Rout.
If there is an error running these files then check aborts.

I don't seen anything in Writing R Extensions about
checking that correct results were produced.  However,
in R 2.7.0, check will compare pkg/pkg-Ex.Rout to
pkg/tests/Examples/pkg/pkg-Ex.Rout.save, if the latter
file is in your package source, and report any differences.

I don't see any mention of this and was wondering if this
method should be recommended or if there was a preferred
way to check help file examples for correctness.  (It would
be nicer if the example() function could also check for
correctness, and the above method doesn't allow for that.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Dunlap
Insightful Corporation
bill at insightful dot com
360-428-8146

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