[R] HTML documentation is not in the expected location

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 17/11/2017 10:47 AM, Adelchi Azzalini wrote:
> Since I have updated my Linux system, and consequently re-installed R, I
> am unable to see HTML documentation which I used to access via a web
> browser. To be more specific, my R installation is declared to be here:
> 
>   > R RHOME
> /usr/local/lib/R
> 
> However, if I look at a location such as
> /usr/local/lib/R/library/base/html
> 
> this contains only two entries  	
> 
> File: 00Index.html
> File: R.css
> 
> Clicking on 00Index.html, it shows the full list of entries which one
> expects to see, but clicking on one of them, 'abs' say, inevitably leads
> to the message 'File not found'.
> 
> The documentation exists (at least in the text form): from within R,
> the command ?abs shows the documentation file. However its HTML version
> is not where I expect it to find ...which is where I did it find for
> many years, until the above-mentioned Linux update.
> 
> The current system is as follows:
> 
> PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
> NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
> VERSION_ID="9"
>   > uname -a
> Linux tamiso 4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.30-2+deb9u2 (2017-06-26)
> x86_64 GNU/Linux
> 
>   > cat /etc/debian_version
> 9.0
>   > gcc --version
> gcc (Debian 6.3.0-18) 6.3.0 20170516
> 
> The current R installation is
> R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28) -- "Short Summer"
> but the same problem existed with 3.4.1 after the system update.
> 
> When I (re-)install R, everything seems fine; no error messages are
> generated.
> 
> Can anyone tell me how to put the HTML documentation files in the right
> place?
> 

By default the documentation is produced on demand, but you can ask to 
produce it all at once.  See section 2.2 of the Installation and 
Administration manual.

Duncan Murdoch