[R] help() and lib.loc (was Re: question about sgeostat)

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Tue, 30 May 2000, Albrecht Gebhardt wrote:

> > help(tri.mesh)
> Error in help(tri.mesh) : No documentation for `tri.mesh'
> > help(tri.mesh, package="tripack", lib.loc="~/R-Lib-x86/")
> Error in help(tri.mesh, package = "tripack", lib.loc = "~/R-Lib-x86/") : 
>         No documentation for `tri.mesh'
> > help(tri.mesh, package="tripack", lib.loc="/home/users/agebhard/R-Lib-x86/")
> ... works
> 
> So it seems the lib.loc path contents in library() and help() gets parsed
> differently: 
> 
> library() knows about the expansion of "~" to the $HOME variable (because
> library(tripack,lib.loc="~/R-Lib-x86/") works) but help() does not.

Yes. As "~" is a csh construct, and not in general a valid part of a path,
it is just chance that it works for library.  index.search(), the
tool used by help, does not know about "~".  sys.source() as used 
by library () does.

I'll see if I can add "~" to the knowledge of index.search.

Generally, though, don't assume that packages know about csh's shortcuts.


-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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