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Undocumented functions

7 messages · Nicola Sturaro Sommacal, Ben Bolker, Joris Meys +3 more

Ben Bolker
# 
Nicola Sturaro Sommacal <mailinglist <at> nicolasturaro.com> writes:
Read about name spaces; search for NAMESPACE or "name space" in the 
R extensions manual.
  Any function that is not exported from a package need not be documented.

  Ben Bolker
Joris Meys
# 
Use namespaces and only export the functions at the user level. The
rest will be hidden in the namespace and doesn't require a help page.
See 'Package Namespaces' in the manual Writing R Extensions.

Cheers


On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Nicola Sturaro Sommacal
<mailinglist at nicolasturaro.com> wrote:

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Sarah Goslee
    

    

      
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Why not use package.skeleton() to construct empty help files?

But if you're determined to change the function names instead, grep and sed are
very useful tools for that sort of thing. (The OS versions, not the R grep()).

Sarah

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 7:01 AM, Nicola Sturaro Sommacal

        
<mailinglist at nicolasturaro.com> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      David Scott
    

    

      
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One easy way is to list the undocumented files in pkg-internal.Rd. From 
the Writing R Extensions manual:

Note that all user-level objects in a package should be documented; if a 
package pkg contains user-level objects which are for ?internal? use 
only, it should provide a file pkg-internal.Rd which documents all such 
objects, and clearly states that these are not meant to be called by the 
user. See e.g. the sources for package *grid* in the R distribution for 
an example.

Probably a perverse use of this facility, but it works, and will even 
allow the package to pass check.

David Scott

        
On 16/12/2011 1:01 a.m., Nicola Sturaro Sommacal wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Martin Maechler
    

    

      
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> One easy way is to list the undocumented files in
    > pkg-internal.Rd. From the Writing R Extensions manual:

    > Note that all user-level objects in a package should be
    > documented; if a package pkg contains user-level objects
    > which are for ?internal? use only, it should provide a
    > file pkg-internal.Rd which documents all such objects, and
    > clearly states that these are not meant to be called by
    > the user. See e.g. the sources for package *grid* in the R
    > distribution for an example.

    > Probably a perverse use of this facility, but it works,
    > and will even allow the package to pass check.

    > David Scott

Excuse me David,
but I think the above actually is pre-R-2.14.x advice.

Now that every (installed) package has a NAMESPACE anyway,
package authors really should use a NAMESPACE themselves
(instead of the "auto-generated at installation-time" one)
and export the non-internal function

Martin

        
> On 16/12/2011 1:01 a.m., Nicola Sturaro Sommacal wrote:

        
>> Hi!
    >> 
    >> I am building a package. This package will not submitted
    >> to CRAN.
    >> 
    >> I write the help files for the most important functions
    >> of my package, I cannot write it for all functions. This
    >> may sounds strange, but so there!
    >> 
    >> I know that all user-level functions should be
    >> documented, so I have to move my undocumented functions
    >> to a non-user-level. It's right?
    >> 
    >> To move my functions to a non-user-level I can write them
    >> as hidden functions, with a dot before the names. This
    >> require a very long check of my code to change the call
    >> to the function preceding it by a dot. So, this is not a
    >> real choice.  There are other way to reach my purpose?
    >> 
    >> Thank you very much for help.
    >> 
    >> Sincerely, Nicola

    > -- 
    > _________________________________________________________________
    > David Scott Department of Statistics The University of
    > Auckland, PB 92019 Auckland 1142, NEW ZEALAND Phone: +64 9
    > 923 5055, or +64 9 373 7599 ext 85055 Email:
    > d.scott at auckland.ac.nz, Fax: +64 9 373 7018