[R-pkg-devel] relation between vignettes and help files

[Boylan, Ross]

I have two questions, one substantive and one technical, about the relation between vignettes and help files.  By "help files" I mean the regular .Rd files.

Substantively, to what extent should material be duplicated between the help files and the vignette?  For example, my vignette includes some output summarizing the analysis.  The output has many different kinds of information, and the details about what they mean are in the help for the function generating the output.  Any advice on how much of that information to put in the vignette?.  The vignette could, of course, say to see the help for the function for details.

It seems natural to me  to have the information in both  places, except that doing so invites inconsistencies as the code changes, if not immediately.

The leads to the the technical question: is there a way to provide links to the help from the vignette?  I'm using Sweave.  And, similarly, is there a way to reference the vignettes from the help?  In particular, it seems natural to reference the vignette from the package help.

Thanks.
Ross Boylan