[Rd] documentation questions

Terry Therneau therneau at mayo.edu
Thu Mar 5 14:12:21 CET 2009


You've answered my question 2 about why the manual was in odd order
> R CMD check was more of a check of the latex version of the files, not
> the final manual.

I was looking at the result of R CMD check, and it was in random order
(perhaps file date?), not just a different collation choice. Very odd.
I will cease worrying about what I might have "done wrong".

I omitted the important version information: R version 2.7.1 (2008-06-23)
on Linux.  

My other question was apparently unclear.  
  looking at the pdf output (because it is nicest to read) 
  I refer to it as "printed" because that's what I very often do for any
substantial chunk of reading (>2 pages).  Easier on my eyes.  
  Talking only about the example section
  The question is what the result of \dontrun should be when producing a
product that is meant to be read by a human, and I will assume that this is
the primary target of the latex process.  I oject to the comment that it adds.

  I would much prefer that it not add extraneous comments to my examples.  I
do want the items bracketed by \dontrun to appear -- if I didn't think the
lines were useful I wouldn't have put them there.  Perhaps because I like
printed versions I like examples to show not just legal input, but give
feedback on what the code does; thus make it to the extent possible look
like a shapshot of a session and not just a set of legal input.  It is most
often output that I will have bracketed.  (wrt Gabor's comment, I would rather
not turn it into a comment block; it would not look at all like that on
the screen).  
  There will be two levels to the response: argue that I really shouldn't
want to do this, and suggestions on how or how not to accomplish it.  Wrt
the first -- I need to consider this more.  You may convince me.  Wrt th
second:
   I don't know perl, but looked at Rdconv.pm.  It looks like changing the line
to $text= undefine_command($text, "dontrun") would do what I want; but that's
a guess, and it would only change the local behavior
   I'll have to pull down R-devel to understand the tools::: comment.
   Yes, verbatim sections in Tex are subtle.

  Thanks for the input.



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