[R] Opening package manual from within R

[Uwe Ligges]

On 24.08.2011 21:59, Tyler Rinker wrote:
>
> Apparently my request to view the help pages


Well, although the questions we see on R-help suggest that some useRs do 
not look at those help pages, most of us do, but in text or html mode 
rather than the pdf version.

Best,
Uwe Ligges


> is not a popular method among R users for gaining information.  for me these pages are very helpful so I will follow up to completed this thread for future searchers.
>
> First thanks fo Prof. Brian Ripley.  Your idea was spot on what I was looking for for generating a pdf from the package library.
>
> I worked out the following code that I added to my .First() library:
> #=============================================================================manual<- function(library, method=web){
>
> LIB<- substitute(library)
> LIB<- as.character(LIB)
>
> METH<- substitute(method)
> METH<- as.character(METH)
>
> switch(METH,
>         web = browseURL(paste("http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/",LIB,"/",LIB,".pdf", sep = "")),
>         system =  {unlink(paste(getwd(),"/",LIB,".pdf",sep=""))
> 		 path<- find.package(LIB)
>                   system(paste(shQuote(file.path(R.home("bin"), "R")),"CMD", "Rd2pdf",shQuote(path)))})
> }
> #=============================================================================
>
> library is the package name
> method is either web or system (web is Internet based and faster where as system creates the pdf from the library latex code and is slower)
>
> #=============================================================================
> Thanks for your responses!
>
> Tyler
>
>
>> Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:12:24 +0100
>> From: ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
>> To: tyler_rinker at hotmail.com
>> CC: r-help at r-project.org
>> Subject: Re: [R] Opening package manual from within R
>>
>> On Tue, 23 Aug 2011, Tyler Rinker wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Simple question but searching rseek did not yield the results I wanted.
>>>
>>> Question: Is there a way to open a help manual for a package from within R.
>>>
>>> For instance I would like to type a function in r for the tm package
>>> and R would open that PDF as seen here:
>>> http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tm/tm.pdf
>>>
>>> -The vignette function exists for vignettes
>>> [vignette("package.name")] so I assume the same exists for manuals.
>>
>> You assume wrong. Vignettes PDFs are installed as part of the package
>> (and often take minutes to regenerate): the PDF version of the help
>> pages (what you seem to call 'the package manual') is not (in
>> general). In many cases what other people (including the author, e.g.
>> me for RODBC) call the 'package manual' is a PDF in the doc directory
>> (which may or may not be a vignette).
>>
>> The assumption is that people will use search facilities or the hints
>> given by the help titles in help(package="tm") or browse the HTML
>> version of the same information (e.g. via help.start).
>>
>> But you can (provided you have pdflatex etc in your path) generate the
>> PDF version of the help pages by
>>
>> R CMD Rd2pdf /path/to/installed/package
>>
>> It will even open it in a browser for you (unless you use
>> --no-preview). You could easily encapsulate this in a function by
>> e.g.
>>
>> showPDFmanual<- function(package, lib.loc=NULL)
>> {
>> path<- find.package(package, lib.loc)
>> system(paste(shQuote(file.path(R.home("bin"), "R")),
>> "CMD", "Rd2pdf",
>> shQuote(path)))
>> }
>>
>> Alternatively *for packages on CRAN only* you can access the version
>> on CRAN by browseURL.
>>
>>> -I do not want library(help="package.name") as this is not detailed enough.
>>>
>>> I am running R 2.14.0 beta on a windows 7 machine
>>> Reproducible code does not seem appropriate in this case.
>>
>> But accurate 'at a minimum' information (and no HTML) does. There is
>> no such version as '2.14.0 beta', and will not be for a couple of
>> months. If you are running a beta version of R it is old, so please
>> update to a released or patched version. (Also, any version
>> calling itself '2.14.0 Under development' is old and needs updating:
>> the current R-devel displays no version number.)
>>
>>
>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Brian D. Ripley, ripley at 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 272866 (PA)
>> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
>   		 	   		
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.