>Date: Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:38:31 +0100
>From: Uwe Ligges <lig...@statistik.tu-dortmund.de>
>
>Steve Rowley wrote:
>> Is there any way to do this from the Windows binary .zip files, or from the
>> installations
>> generated thereby?
>
> Well, internally, you can do somewthing as R's help system does, but it
> is documented to be subject to change ("As they are mainly intended for
> internal use, their interfaces are subject to change."), see ?Rd2HTML
>
> For package pkg in directory c:/dir on help topic foo you could ask
>
> Rd2HTML(tools:::fetchRdDB("c:/dir/pkg/help/pkg", "foo")) in order to get
> a HTML representation. See ?Rd2HTML for details on how to control stuff.
Thanks, tools:::fetchRdDB() was the clue I needed. I understand the
frightening triple colon means this bit of magic is internal, and
likely to change at a moment's notice. Using it wasn't exactly
trivial, either: see the code below for how I generated the static
HTML for all installed packages.
Since wanting static HTML help pages for bookmarking or reading while
R is not running sounds kind of reasonable, it would be nice if
something like this were available for Windows users of R. It would
be a shame if everybody else had to figure this out in detail, too.
Again, thanks for the pointer. R is fun again! :-)
------------------------------
library("tools") # fetchRdDB(),
Rd2HTML(), et al.
makeStaticHTMLHelp <- function(libs = .libPaths(), verbose = TRUE) {
maybeCat <- function(msg, ...) { if (verbose) cat(sprintf(msg, ...)) }
subDirectories <- function(d) { # Directories under d
(not files!)
basename(rownames(subset(file.info(dir(path = d, full.names = TRUE)),
subset = isdir)))
} #
makeHTML <- function(pkgRdDB, lib, pkg, key, links) {# Write key's doc to an
html file
Rd2HTML(pkgRdDB[[key]], # extract doc from Rd
data
out = file.path(lib, pkg, "html", paste(key, "html", sep
= ".")),
package = pkg, # use this pkg's name
Links = links, # use HTML links if
non-null
no_links = is.null(links), # no links if arg is
null
stages = c("install","render"), # run appropriate
Sexpr forms
outputEncoding = "", # native encoding of
this system
dynamic = FALSE) # this is, of course,
static
} #
## *** NB: make.packages.html() prints a message even if verbose == FALSE?!
maybeCat(if (make.packages.html(lib.loc = libs, verbose = verbose))
"done.\n" # Succeeded updating
packages.html file
else # But success is
apparently not always
"FAILED?!\n") # guaranteed!
maybeCat("Finding HTML links... ") # Find HTML links
between doc pages
links <- findHTMLlinks() # just 1ce, outside the
loops below
maybeCat("found %d links... done.\n", length(links)) #
sapply(libs, function(lib) { # Map over libraries
maybeCat("Generating static HTML for packages in library %s...\n", lib)
sapply(subDirectories(lib), function(pkg) { # Map over packages in
this library
maybeCat(" package %s... ", pkg) # Fetch pkg's Rd docs
(for ALL keys)
tryCatch({ # In case can't read
.rdb file
pkgRdDB <- tools:::fetchRdDB(file.path(lib, pkg, "help", pkg), key =
NULL)
sapply(names(pkgRdDB), function(key) { # Map over keys in
this pkg's docs
tryCatch(makeHTML(pkgRdDB, lib, pkg, key, links),
error = function(e) { # If error, retry
w/o links
maybeCat("retrying %s without links... ", key)
tryCatch(makeHTML(pkgRdDB, lib, pkg, key, NULL),
error = function(e) { maybeCat("FAILED without
links?! ") })
}) #
}) # Done with this key
}, error = function(e) { maybeCat("Couldn't read .rdb file?! ") })
maybeCat("done.\n") # Done with this
package
}) # Done with this library
}) # Done.
invisible(NA) # Return nothing of
interest
} #
------------------------------
--
Steve Rowley <s...@alum.mit.edu> http://alum.mit.edu/www/sgr/ Skype: sgr000
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