[Rd] ‘:::’ call

[Paul Gilbert]

On 13-08-28 05:13 PM, Hadley Wickham wrote:
>>   3/ Some functions are exported normally but hidden by using "." in the
>> beginning of their names. Other package maintainers would know they exist,
>> but end users would not so easily find them. (Duncan's other suggestion of
>> using \keyword{internal} in the .Rd file strikes me as problematic. I'm
>> surprised CRAN checks do not already object to functions exported and
>> documented with \keyword{internal}.)
>
> Why? I think this is exactly the use case of \keyword{internal}.
>

 From Writing R extensions "The special keyword ‘internal’ marks a page 
of internal objects that are not part of the package’s API" which 
suggests to me that a function with \keyword{internal} should not be 
exported, since that makes it part of the API. And, if it is really for 
internal use in a package, why would you export it? I think you are 
interpreting "internal" to mean internal to a group of packages, not 
internal to a package. But that is just the complement of what I am 
saying: there may be a need for two levels of export.

(Also, if you export it then you should document it, but for many 
maintainers \keyword{internal} is shorthand for I don't need to document 
this properly because no one is suppose to use it outside the package.)

Paul