Random.Rd

[Uwe Ligges]

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Kurt Hornik wrote:

> >>>>> Martin Maechler writes:
> 
> >>>>> "KH" == Kurt Hornik <hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:
> >>>>> ripley  writes:
> BDR> Uwe,
> BDR> The titles are not necessarily intended to be aliases.  units.Rd is
> BDR> another one.  Once upon a time \title automatically generated a \alias,
> BDR> but not for some time (and I've forgotten the reasoning).
> 
> Not \title, but \name.  

Right, sorry.


> This is how we started out.  We then realized
> that e.g. we cannot have .Script.Rd so now we separate the name of the
> documentation object from the topics it provides documentation for.
> 
> BDR> I think this is confusing, as help.search shows the entry as
> BDR> Random(base) but ?Random does not work.  On the other hand, ?Binomial
> BDR> does work, and there is no object Binomial.  My preference would be to
> BDR> change help.search, I think.
> 
> > However I think, he (and I) would also want 
> 
> >   ?Random
> 
> > to work which needs a change to help() as well {or rather to an
> > underlying utility common to all of help(), help.search() and
> > Java searching from the help.start() search interface ?!

Right.

 
> I do not see what is confusing. 

Well, Random is listed at several places, e.g. in the result of
 help.search("random")  : # ..., Random(base), ...
So, at least for me, it is confusing trying ?Random after that.


> Rd writers create a help file and use
> \alias to register the topics documented.  We cannot assume that the
> file name is a topic documented, see zScript.Rd which documents .Script.

Agreed, but why not \name ?


> Why should 'Random' be a topic documented?
> 
> help.start() has a bug because it incorrectly assumes that we can get
> help on the name. I will fix this by instead pointing to the *first*
> alias in the documentation object.

As Martin pointed out, not only help.start() has this "bug"(?).

I think it is not a bad idea to get help with ?NAME , if NAME is listed
anywhere else ...

Uwe

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