[Rd] linking to package directories broken in R >= 2.10 beta

Duncan Murdoch murdoch at stats.uwo.ca
Sun Oct 18 23:24:29 CEST 2009


On 18/10/2009 4:45 PM, Thomas Petzoldt wrote:
> Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> The doc directory is known to be visible.  It might surprise someone if 
>> arbitrary directories were visible, and readable by any user.
>>
>>> 2) The change will introduce additional work for package authors
>>> that used internal links within their packages. I can, of course,
>>> reorganize everything below doc, e.g. /library/foo/doc/examples ... but
>>> this means that these things are even more hidden.
>> Why would someone know to look in .../examples?  Just update whatever 
>> hint you gave them to look there, and tell them to look in 
>> .../doc/examples instead.  I don't think it's likely that most people 
>> would discover either directory without a hint somewhere.  If they were 
>> looking for examples, they'd look in the documented places, the Examples 
>> section of man pages, or in the vignettes.
>>
>>> 3) However, according to the changed R-Exts, it was obviously decided
>>> that this was necessary, so *I* will do the required reorganization.
>> I think it was not so much a decision that this was necessary, as that 
>> it was prudent.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> [...]
> 
> ok, I will agree, but let me add one final thought: What is with the 
> /demo directory?

It's not displayed by the help system, it is displayed by the demo() 
function.  There wasn't a way to get to it through the help system in 
previous versions, was there?  (If you were running a browser you could 
browse files on the local file system, and you could construct a \url{} 
in a man page, but I don't think there were any links to the demo 
directory generated by R, were there?)

Duncan Murdoch



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