[Rd] Rd output garbled in some circumstances

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 13/01/2010 6:15 PM, Ross Boylan wrote:
> I'm having trouble getting correct help output in some circumstances for
> a package I've created. Though this is not an issue with the current R,
> I would like my package to work with previous ones as well.
> 
> I'm looking for suggestions about how I could rework my .Rd file so that
> it will work with prior R's.  In particular, R 2.7 is in the latest
> stable release of Debian, so I'd like to solve the problem for 2.7.
> 
> The .Rd file is for a function and has an arguments section like this
> \arguments{
>   \item{formula}{ A formula giving the vectors containing
> ## skipped
>     covariates.  }
> ## skipped
>   \item{stepdenominator}{See \code{stepnumerator} just above.}
>   
>   \item{do.what}{\describe{
>     \item{1}{By default, calculates a maximimum likelihood.  To evaluate
>       a single likelihood, set all parameters to fixed. }
>     \item{0}{Count number of paths and related statistics without
>       evaluating the likelihood.}
>     \item{-1}{Get detailed counts (but no likelihoods) associated with
>       each case.  The return value is a matrix.}
>     \item{10}{Use the model to generate a random path for each
>       case. returning a \code{data.frame} with simulated observed states
>       and times and all other data as observed.}
>     }}
> 
>   \item{testing}{This argument is  only for use by developers.  Set it
> ## etc
> 
> This comes out fine in a pdf, but ?mspath (the function) produces, in
> part,
> <quote>
> stepdenominator: See 'stepnumerator' just above.
> 
>      1 By default, calculates a maximimum likelihood.  To evaluate a
>           single likelihood, set all parameters to fixed. 
> 
>      0 Count number of paths and related statistics without evaluating
>           the likelihood.
> </quote>
> in R 2.7.  The "do.what" header has vanished.  In R 2.10 it's fine.
> 
> Is there an error in my documentation format?
> Even if not, is there some change I could make that would get R 2.7 to
> work better?

I would avoid nesting the \describe within \arguments.  Both basically 
use the same formatting code, and 2.7 probably doesn't support nesting 
properly.  There was no real parser there, just a fallible pattern 
matching approach.

A better solution is to say your package requires a recent version of R, 
but maybe that's not feasible for you.

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> The R change log doesn't show anything obviously related to this, though
> it has several references to unspecified fixes to the documentation
> system.  I also tried looking at the bug tracker, but couldn't find
> anything--in fact I had trouble identifying bugs in the documentation
> system as opposed to bugs in the documentation.
> 
> Thanks.
> Ross Boylan
> 
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