[Rd] make.packages.html

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 27 May 2008, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Prof Brian Ripley
> <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>> On Mon, 26 May 2008, Jonathan Baron wrote:
>>
>>> It used to be that, whenever I added or updated a new package, the
>>> file /usr/lib/R/doc/html/packages.html would be updated (on Linux).
>>> Now I find that this does not happen anymore.
>>
>> It does happen, but only if you install a package to the .Library directory.
>>  That file is only intended as a listing of the main library, not other
>> libraries (as which are in the library path is session-specific).  As NEWS
>> for R 2.6.0 says
>>
>>    o   install.packages() on a Unix-alike now updates
>>        doc/html/packages.html only if packages are installed to
>>        .Library (by that exact name).
>>
>>> So I found this function make.packages.html, which seems to do what I
>>> think should be done automatically.  But it puts its output in a file in
>>> /tmp/...,
>>
>> It is a helper for help.start(), which sets up details of the current
>> packages in the session temporary directory.  Please do consult its help
>> file.
>>
>> The function used to update doc/html/packages.html is
>> utils:::link.html.help(), which is a wrapper for tools:::unix.packages.html.
>>
>>> which I then have to move, in an extra step, to where it should be.  I
>>> don't understand why this happens.  I think that the old behavior was
>>> better.
>>
>> It caused a lot of needless updating.
>>
>>> I have two reasons for this.  First, my R page (finzi.psych.upenn.edu)
>>> has a list of all packages.  As it happens, since this change has
>>> occurred, it has been out of date, until today.  Second, for my own
>>> use, I have a Firefox bookmark to
>>> file:/usr/lib/R/doc/html/packages.html, which was also out of date.
>>
>> Let's hope you have a vaiid file:// URL ....
>>
>>> I don't subscribe to r-devel, so, in case this gets posted, please use
>>> group reply.
>>
>> What we don't know is where you are installing your packages.  If it is to
>> the main library, the behaviour should be unchanged (and I have just tested
>> it and it works for me).  If it is to another library, the intention never
>> was to list packages in other libraries.
>>
>> [Note that all this applies to Unix-alikes: Windows does not have symbolic
>> links (OK, some filesystems on some versions have a very limited form) and R
>> does things differently there.]
>
> Perhaps this is what you are referring to but just in case note that
> subject to permissions one can create UNIX-like symbolic links
> on Vista:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link#Windows_Vista_symbolic_link

Some users (and not by default) can on some filesystems, only.  That 
makes it too limited to be useful in this context, and we won't be 
rewriting this we no longer need to support XP, let alone 2000.

-- 
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