[Roxygen-devel] Feature requests: optional consistent use of tags (e.g. title, description, in DESCRIPTION files)

[Janko Thyson]

Hi Peter and the rest of the Roxygen-Team,

 

I have a (hopefully) small feature request concerning package DESCRIPTION
files that make use of Roxygen tags.

 

AFAIU, such a DESCRIPTION file currently has to look something like this:

 

#' Title here.

#'

#' \tabular{ll}{

#' Package: \tab myPackage\cr

#' Type: \tab Package\cr

#' Version: \tab 0.1\cr

#' Date: \tab 2008-08-24\cr

#' License: \tab GPL (>= 2)\cr

#' LazyLoad: \tab yes\cr

#' }

#'

#' Package description here.

#' The description can go over several

#' lines.

#'

#' @name myPackage-package

#' @aliases myPackage

#' @docType package

#' @title Package title.

#' @author Peter Danenberg \email{pcd@@roxygen.org}

#' @references

#' \url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_little_theorem}

#' @keywords package

#' @seealso \code{\link{is.pseudoprime}}

#' @examples

#' is.pseudoprime(13, 4)

 

Now, would anything argue against specifying _all_ components of the
DESCRIPTION file via Roxygen tags and have it be processed to look the way
it's supposed to?

Such that the file would look something like this:

 

#' @title2 Title here.

#'

#' @package myPackage

#' @type Package

#' @version 0.1

#' @date 2008-08-24

#' @license GPL (>= 2)

#' @lazyLoad yes

#'

#' @pkgDescription Package description here.

#' The description can go over several

#' lines.

#'

#' @name myPackage-package

#' @aliases myPackage

#' @docType package

#' @title Package title.

#' @author Peter Danenberg \email{pcd@@roxygen.org}

#' @references

#' \url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_little_theorem}

#' @keywords package

#' @seealso \code{\link{is.pseudoprime}}

#' @examples

#' is.pseudoprime(13, 4)

 

Maybe that would be a bit more consistent. Particularly, it would help me a
bit in creating DESCRIPTION files from a template and in reading/"parsing"
the  values of interest from such files. E.g., without the '@pkgDescription'
tag it's somewhat clumsy to read descriptions that go over several lines.

 

Actually, the same could also apply to Roxygen code in function/method/class
definitions (title and description don't need tags either). I don't know if
that's explicitly not wanted in order to simplify things, but maybe one
could add it as an option ;-)

 

Thanks a lot for pushing this thing forward!

 

Janko

 

 

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