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manpage problem

3 messages · Brian Ripley, Joerg van den Hoff

Original
Joerg van den Hoff
# 
not sure whether this is MAC specific:

I use \itemize or \enumerate in some manpages. it worked previously, but  
I'm not sure up till when...
now (with 2.10.1) I see the following:

-- using the R-GUI manpages are displayed correctly
-- in the Terminal.app (or xterm) only the bullet points (or enumerating  
numbers) are displayed, but the actual description
    for the item is missing.

any ideas?

thanks

joerg

ps: macos 10.5.8 ppc
pps: in case, the problem is my manpage, the source code of this  
(rudimentary) manpage is:

\name{metacor}
\alias{metacor}
\title{
Perform metabolite correction
}
\description{
Computes metabolite corrected input function from whole blood data plus
time dependent metabolite fraction
}
\usage{
metacor(input, metfrac = 0)
}
\arguments{
   \item{input}{
   measured input function (class \code{Roidata})
}
   \item{metfrac}{
   metabolite fraction
}
}
\details{
The metabolite fraction has to be in one of the following formats.

    \enumerate{
       \item{a single number}
       \item{a vector of metabolite fractions corresponding one-to-one to  
the
          time points in input}
       \item{a two column matrix (time vs. metab. fraction) where time units
          have to be the same as those used in input}
       \item{a Roidata object including timing information}
    }
}
\value{
metabolite corrected input function (\code{Roidata} object)
}
\author{
vdh
}
\seealso{
\code{readroi}
}
\keyword{ utilities }
1 day later
Brian Ripley
#
On Wed, 7 Apr 2010, joerg van den hoff wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
Why do you suppose it would be?

            

      
      
      
    

        
with HTML help, the default, I guess.

            

      
      
      
    

        
with text help (the default), I guess.

            

      
      
      
    

        
RTFM time: your help (sic) pages are incorrect.  That is not how \item 
works in those environments, and the braces are incorrect.
For an example of the correct layout, see src/library/base/man/dcf.Rd 
in the R sources.

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Joerg van den Hoff
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
thanks for replying.

On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:49:05 +0200, Prof Brian Ripley

        
<ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        
that (the RTFM part) I did (before mailing, btw). RTFSC on the other hand  
would be a bit
of a tough advice -- at least as a default strategy.

AFAICS the correct \item syntax is not explained in the corresponding
section 2.4 (or any other) of the 'writing r extensions' manual. in  
retrospect one could possibly _guess_  that 'the text following
each \item is formatted...' implies that there should be no braces. so I  
wrongly assumed from the common usage of \item
(in \arguments) that braces are needed.

I would say this lack of specificity is a shortcoming of the manual which  
would profit from changing this section accordingly.

last remark: the parsers/converters to html and txt behave differently. in  
my view, the behaviour of the html converter (ignoring
the redundant/wrong braces) is more desirable. in any case they should not  
have different opinions how to interpret the help page
(your usage of `(sic)' is wrong/non-standard, btw...) source. (and the  
behaviour has changed from 2.9.x to 2.10.1: previously
the text output preserved the braced \item arguments, also the formatting  
is messed up (as I just checked on a linux machine)).

regards,

j. van den hoff