[R] installing my own package - problems with INDEX

[Pamela Hall]

Hi there;

I am a neophyte to R though I have been messing around with programming in other languages and environments for some years (my dog's name is punchcard to give you some idea of how many years).  I have been trying to make a package and install it, to no avail.  The functions I have written all work as expected (by me, that is).  But I cannot get the html help pages to work.  

The failure appears to be in creating the INDEX file.  No matter how carefully I check all of my *.Rd pages, the error message that I have "unbalanced braces"  keeps showing up.  I cannot find any error in matching braces.  I am using Alpha as the editor, and it identifies mismatched braces - there are none in the *.Rd file.

Another aspect of this problem is that the INDEX file only contains one line, that of the first file.  However, the html dir has an index file (00Index.html) that contains all of the functions I have documented, but they are all linked to the same identical function web page - the first one.

Please give me a hint.  There are no mismatched braces as far as I can tell.  Even when I try to check a single function and its Rd file, I get the same error message.  And there are no other error messages.  The package can be attached and the functions work, but the help pages do not.

I must be doing something really simple, but very wrong.  What are the 5 most common first mistakes some one makes in Rd files?

thanks
-ph