[R] HTML documentation is not in the expected location

[Adelchi Azzalini]

Thanks for the useful clarification. This has solved the issue. I am  puzzled on why the problem has not shown up for a decade (at least), as I have had the HTML in place without explicitly asking for it.  However, this is a lesser problem.

Best wishes,

Adelchi


> On 17 Nov 2017, at 17:03, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 17/11/2017 10:47 AM, Adelchi Azzalini wrote:
>> Since I have updated my Linux system, and consequently re-installed R, I
>> am unable to see HTML documentation which I used to access via a web
>> browser. To be more specific, my R installation is declared to be here:
>>  > R RHOME
>> /usr/local/lib/R
>> However, if I look at a location such as
>> /usr/local/lib/R/library/base/html
>> this contains only two entries  	
>> File: 00Index.html
>> File: R.css
>> Clicking on 00Index.html, it shows the full list of entries which one
>> expects to see, but clicking on one of them, 'abs' say, inevitably leads
>> to the message 'File not found'.
>> The documentation exists (at least in the text form): from within R,
>> the command ?abs shows the documentation file. However its HTML version
>> is not where I expect it to find ...which is where I did it find for
>> many years, until the above-mentioned Linux update.
>> The current system is as follows:
>> PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
>> NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
>> VERSION_ID="9"
>>  > uname -a
>> Linux tamiso 4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.30-2+deb9u2 (2017-06-26)
>> x86_64 GNU/Linux
>>  > cat /etc/debian_version
>> 9.0
>>  > gcc --version
>> gcc (Debian 6.3.0-18) 6.3.0 20170516
>> The current R installation is
>> R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28) -- "Short Summer"
>> but the same problem existed with 3.4.1 after the system update.
>> When I (re-)install R, everything seems fine; no error messages are
>> generated.
>> Can anyone tell me how to put the HTML documentation files in the right
>> place?
> 
> By default the documentation is produced on demand, but you can ask to produce it all at once.  See section 2.2 of the Installation and Administration manual.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
>