On 2026-01-25 4:39 p.m., Michael L Friendly wrote:
One thing I'd like to do is to use `demo(package="mypkg")` in the
README.Rmd file for `mypkg`.
Currently, this opens up an editor window in RStudio. But I don't know
how to capture this for inclusion in the README. It returns an object of
class “packageIQR” which I’ve never heard of
demo(package = "vcdExtra") |> class()
[1] "packageIQR"
demo(package="vcdExtra")
If you run `unclass(demo(package="vcdExtra"))` you can see the
(undocumented?) structure of a packageIQR object. It's pretty simple:
a list with a few labels, and a "results" matrix with information about
the demos. You could print it using
demo(package="vcdExtra")$results
or just the interesting bits with
demo(package="vcdExtra")$results[,3:4]
Duncan Murdoch
-----Original Message-----
From: Koenker, Roger W <[email protected]>
Sent: January 25, 2026 3:53 PM
To: Michael L Friendly <[email protected]>
Cc: Duncan Murdoch <[email protected]>; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [R] Demo files in R packages
I too find demos quite useful, particularly for my REBayes package for
which documented examples are useless since CRAN checking doesn’t or at
least didn’t have an installed Mosek capability. I’ve taken to adding
references to them in the body of the roxyen2 documentation but this is
a bit hit or miss. Fortunately, as Micheal says demo(package = “foo”)
still works provided that users are aware of it. I would also be
interested in other creative solutions to make them more visible.
Roger
On Jan 25, 2026, at 10:44 AM, Michael L Friendly <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I know I can put them into a vignette, but the advantage of demo files is that
you can run them using demo().
It just seems like the facilities for demo files were abandoned.
-Michael
-----Original Message-----
From: Duncan Murdoch <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: January 24, 2026 6:02 PM
To: Michael L Friendly <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>; [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [R] Demo files in R packages
On 2026-01-24 4:49 p.m., Michael L Friendly wrote:
Before vignettes were established as a way to document a package, there were
demos, R files in a `demo/` folder with a `demo/00-Index` file giving their
contents.
Used as `demo(package="...")` this gave a window with a list and titles, and
`demo("example1", package="...") ran `demo/example1.R` in the console.
It was also a good way to give a pointer to something more extensive than you
wanted to include in the examples for a function or dataset.
This idea still works for R packages, but is not available for use in roxygen2
documentation, or pkgdown sites.
I have several packages with collections of demo/ files, and am wondering if
there is anything further I can do with them to make them accessible.
I converted most of my demo files in rgl to a single vignette. I just
added a simple paragraph
This vignette holds code that was previously included as "demos"
in `rgl`. Some of the demos require R to be running; those remain
available via `demo(package = "rgl")`.
As the second sentence indicates, rgl still has a few demos, mostly Shiny
examples.
Conversion was simple: just copy the title into a heading, and include all the
code.
Duncan Murdoch
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