make.packages.html

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Prof Brian Ripley
<ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

On Mon, 26 May 2008, Jonathan Baron wrote:

It used to be that, whenever I added or updated a new package, the
file /usr/lib/R/doc/html/packages.html would be updated (on Linux).
Now I find that this does not happen anymore.

It does happen, but only if you install a package to the .Library directory.
 That file is only intended as a listing of the main library, not other
libraries (as which are in the library path is session-specific).  As NEWS
for R 2.6.0 says

   o   install.packages() on a Unix-alike now updates
       doc/html/packages.html only if packages are installed to
       .Library (by that exact name).

So I found this function make.packages.html, which seems to do what I
think should be done automatically.  But it puts its output in a file in
/tmp/...,

It is a helper for help.start(), which sets up details of the current
packages in the session temporary directory.  Please do consult its help
file.

The function used to update doc/html/packages.html is
utils:::link.html.help(), which is a wrapper for tools:::unix.packages.html.

which I then have to move, in an extra step, to where it should be.  I
don't understand why this happens.  I think that the old behavior was
better.

It caused a lot of needless updating.

I have two reasons for this.  First, my R page (finzi.psych.upenn.edu)
has a list of all packages.  As it happens, since this change has
occurred, it has been out of date, until today.  Second, for my own
use, I have a Firefox bookmark to
file:/usr/lib/R/doc/html/packages.html, which was also out of date.

Let's hope you have a vaiid file:// URL ....

I don't subscribe to r-devel, so, in case this gets posted, please use
group reply.

What we don't know is where you are installing your packages.  If it is to
the main library, the behaviour should be unchanged (and I have just tested
it and it works for me).  If it is to another library, the intention never
was to list packages in other libraries.

[Note that all this applies to Unix-alikes: Windows does not have symbolic
links (OK, some filesystems on some versions have a very limited form) and R
does things differently there.]

Perhaps this is what you are referring to but just in case note that
subject to permissions one can create UNIX-like symbolic links
on Vista:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link#Windows_Vista_symbolic_link