[R] help page becomes unavailable after a package is reinstalled

[Yihui Xie]

Unfortunately, no. We can use any package to reproduce this error, e.g. rgl

> library(rgl)
> options(help_type = "text")
> ?rgl.open  # works fine
> install.packages('rgl')  # reinstall it
Installing package(s) into ‘/home/yihui/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.13’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
trying URL 'http://streaming.stat.iastate.edu/CRAN/src/contrib/rgl_0.92.798.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 1677772 bytes (1.6 Mb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 1.6 Mb

* installing *source* package ‘rgl’ ...
checking for gcc... gcc
....
** testing if installed package can be loaded

* DONE (rgl)

The downloaded packages are in
	‘/tmp/Rtmp0NdwY4/downloaded_packages’
> ?rgl.open
Error in fetch(key) : internal error -3 in R_decompress1

> sessionInfo()
R version 2.13.1 (2011-07-08)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
 [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
 [5] LC_MONETARY=C              LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] rgl_0.92.798

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.13.1


Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <xieyihui at gmail.com>
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Gabor Grothendieck
<ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Rolf Turner <rolf.turner at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>> I can verify that I get exactly the same error (also R 2.13.1 under Ubuntu).
>> No idea what to *do* about it, though. :-(
>>
> You could check if text help works:
>
> options(help_type = "text")
> ?by
>
> or
>
> help("by", help_type = "text")
>
> --
> Statistics & Software Consulting
> GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
> tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
> email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com
>
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