Create an alias (also known as) for an object whose a short help page and/or original help page can be viewed with .?obj.

When a function or object is renamed, the link to its original help page is lost in R. Using aka() (also known as) with correct alias= allows to keep track of the original help page and get it with .?obj. Moreover, one can also populate a short man page with description, seealso and example or add a short comment message that is displayed at the same time in the R console.

aka(
  obj,
  alias = NULL,
  comment = "",
  description = NULL,
  seealso = NULL,
  example = NULL,
  url = NULL
)

# S3 method for aka
print(
  x,
  hyperlink_type = getOption("hyperlink_type", default = .hyperlink_type()),
  ...
)

# S3 method for aka
str(object, ...)

Arguments

obj: An R object.
alias: The full qualified name of the alias object whose help page should be retained as pkg::name. If NULL (by default), use obj.
comment: A comment to place in obj (will also be printed when calling .?obj).
description: A description of the function for the sort man page.
seealso: A character string of functions in the form fun or pkg::fun.
example: A character string with code for a short example.
url: An http or https URL pointing to the help page for the function on the Internet.
x: An aka object
hyperlink_type: The type of hyperlink supported. The default value should be ok. Use "none" to suppress hyperlink, "href" for http(s):// link that opens a web page, or "help" in RStudio to open the corresponding help page in the Help tab.
...: Further arguments (not used yet)
object: An aka object

Value

The original obj with the comment attribute set or replaced with comment = plus a src attribute set to alias = and description, seealso, example, and url attributes also possibly populated. If the object is a function, its class becomes aka and function.

Examples

# Say you prefer is.true() similar to is.na() or is.null()
# but R provides isTRUE().
library(svMisc)
# Also defining a short man page
is.true <- aka(isTRUE, description = "Check if an object is TRUE.",
  seealso = c("is.false", "logical"), example = c("is.true(TRUE)", "is.true(FALSE)", "is.true(NA)"))
# This way, you still got access to the right help page for is.true()
if (FALSE) {
.?is.true
}