[R-pkg-devel] How and where do I document sysdata.rda

[Michael Chirico]

Here are about 60 CRAN packages discussing sysdata in their Rd files:

https://github.com/search?q=org%3Acran+path%3A.Rd+%2F%28%5B%5E%7B+%5D%7C%5B%5Ed%5D%5C%7B%29%5Cs*sysdata%2F&type=code

You might take a cue from them. Indeed \keyword{internal} is common there.

On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 9:57 AM Kevin R. Coombes <kevin.r.coombes using gmail.com>
wrote:

> If it is *only *in sysdata.Rda, then it is accessible to your package
> code but is not available to users. (They can't, for example, use the
> "data" function to load it themselves.) So, there is no reason to
> document it. Just like there is no reason to document functions in your
> R scripts that were not exported into user space. Of course, you can
> document those functions by using the keyword "internal" in an Rd file.
> I suspect that this would work to document your internal data set as well.
>
> On 3/20/2025 12:47 PM, Lists wrote:
> > Dear Jeff
> >
> > I am afraid that does not work if the data file is in sysdata.rda. I
> > had to remove my existing Rd file to get the package to pass checks.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > On 20/03/2025 15:15, Jeff Newmiller wrote:
> >> Did you seriously look for instructions and not find [1]? And why do
> >> you think the answer should not involve Rd files? Documentation in R
> >> packages is what Rd files are for.
> >>
> >> If you don't want to mess with Rd files then you have no choice but
> >> to use something like the Roxygen package to mess with them for
> >> you... but that just kicks the can down the road .. Rd files are
> >> always involved.
> >>
> >> [1]
> >>
> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-devel/R-exts.html#Documenting-data-sets
> >>
> >> On March 20, 2025 7:39:39 AM PDT, Lists <lists using dewey.myzen.co.uk>
> wrote:
> >>> I want to put a look-up table into sysdata.rda to avoid having to
> >>> compute it everytime. At the moment I create it and save the
> >>> resulting file and then manually copy it to sysdata.rda. This works
> >>> but the package now contains no documentation about the look-up table.
> >>>
> >>> Most of the information which I turned up online involves doing it
> >>> all indirectly using various packages. I do not want to do that, I
> >>> am quite happy editing files by hand and moving them to where I want
> >>> them by hand. So what I need is to know where I should put the
> >>> documentation and what format it should be assuming it is not an Rd
> >>> file.
> >>>
> >>> Of course what I want may be impossible and I just need to document
> >>> it in the script which creates it but that seems messy.
> >>>
> >>> Michael Dewey
> >>>
> >>> ______________________________________________
> >>> R-package-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >>
> >
> > ______________________________________________
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> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
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