R-alpha: Re: S-help -- Ultimate doc.== source : $SPLUS/cmd/help.tr & help.nr
Martin Maechler
Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>
Fri, 23 May 97 09:51:34 +0200
Kurt,
if you really want to find out what things an S help file can contain,
you must learn some nroff/troff [ maybe use 'groff', the GNU one ].
As always, ultimate documentation is == source.
The definition of the S help is in
the two files
$SPLUS/cmd/help.[nt]r
where nr ^= nroff, i.e. ASCII output
tr ^= troff i.e. printed output (e.g via Postscript conversion)
help.tr starts with
.\" @(#)help.tr.pre version 2.33 created 9/22/95
.\" @(#)Copyright (c), 1987, 1995 StatSci, Inc. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This file defines the macros that S-PLUS help files use. This file
.\" was modified by the S-PLUS SETUP script to tailor it to your system.
.\"
The most important [nt]roff command here is
.de AB
which stands for 'define the AB macro'
which will be referenced by
.AB
------------
Further note:
S-plus uses a slightly different help file format than
'vanilla S' from AT&T.
E.g, they (StatSci) introduced the extra
.RA for 'Required ARGUMENTS'
.OA for 'Optional Arguments'
where Chambers et al. just use 'ARGUMENTS' which comes
automatically before the first argument (with .AG .... ) is set.
PPS: S version 4 uses a COMPLETELY different system.
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