I want to cite another package (the whole package, not just a function from it) in the documentation of some functions I'm developing. I am using Roxygen2 comments to document my package functions.

I cannot find a way to create a link to a whole third-party package using Roxygen2. To link to a package function, one would write [pkg::fun()] but I don't know how to create a link to the package itself.

Some packages expose a general man page, and it's possible to link to it via e.g. [pkg::pkg].

But many packages don't have this and there's just a general package vignette with the list of functions and a link to the description:

Such page can be reached by clicking on a package name in the packages tab in RStudio.

How can I link to it from a function documentation made in Roxygen2 markdown.?

CodePudding user response：

You cannot link to the page that comes up when you click on the name of a package in RStudio's Packages pane. RStudio invisibly calls help(package = "<name>"), which renders the package's index.

From the R-exts manual:

The markup \link{foo} (usually in the combination \code{\link{foo}}) produces a hyperlink to the help for foo. Here foo is a topic, that is the argument of \alias markup in another Rd file (possibly in another package).

Hence \link and the equivalent Markdown markup supported by roxygen2 can only link to topics. A package index is not a topic in this sense because there is no corresponding Rd file.

It might be best just to remind users that they can use help to access the index of the package to which you are referring.