This blog is updated daily.
A general description is here.
An experimental tag \Sexpr has been added to Rd files, to
evaluate expressions at build, install, or render time.
Currently install time and render time evaluation are
supported.
The parse_Rd() parser has been made more tolerant of coding
errors in Rd files: now all syntax errors are reported as
warnings, and an attempt is made to continue parsing.
parse_Rd() now has an argument 'fragment' (default FALSE) to
accept small fragments of Rd files (so that \Sexpr can output
Rd code which is then parsed).
parse_Rd() now always converts its input to UTF-8. The Rd2*
rendering functions have a new parameter, 'outputEncoding',
which controls how their output is encoded.
parse_Rd() no longer includes the newline as part of a
"%"-style comment.
There have been various bug fixes and code reorganization in
the Rd renderers Rd2HTML, Rd2latex, Rd2txt, and Rd2ex.
All example files are now created with either ASCII or UTF-8 encoding, and the encoding is only marked in the file if there is any non-UTF-8 code (previously it was marked if the help file had non-ASCII contents, possibly in other sections).
print.Rd() now adds necessary escape characters so that
printing and re-parsing an Rd object should produce an
equivalent object.
parse_Rd() was incorrectly handling multiple backslashes in
R code strings, converting 4n+3 backslashes to 2n+1 instead
of 2n+2.
A new dynamic help system may be started using
tools::startDynamicHelp(). With this option, HTML help pages
will be generated on request, resolving links by searching
through all installed packages.
An experimental tag \Sexpr has been added to Rd files, to evaluate expressions at build, install, or render time. Currently install time and render time evaluation are supported.
The parse_Rd() parser has been made more tolerant of coding errors in Rd files: now all syntax errors are reported as warnings, and an attempt is made to continue parsing.
parse_Rd() now has an argument 'fragment' (default FALSE) to accept small fragments of Rd files (so that \Sexpr can output Rd code which is then parsed).
parse_Rd() now always converts its input to UTF-8. The Rd2* rendering functions have a new parameter, 'outputEncoding', which controls how their output is encoded.
parse_Rd() no longer includes the newline as part of a "%"-style comment.
There have been various bug fixes and code reorganization in the Rd renderers Rd2HTML, Rd2latex, Rd2txt, and Rd2ex.
All example files are now created with either ASCII or UTF-8 encoding, and the encoding is only marked in the file if there is any non-UTF-8 code (previously it was marked if the help file had non-ASCII contents, possibly in other sections).
print.Rd() now adds necessary escape characters so that printing and re-parsing an Rd object should produce an equivalent object.
parse_Rd() was incorrectly handling multiple backslashes in R code strings, converting 4n+3 backslashes to 2n+1 instead of 2n+2.
A new dynamic HTML help system is used by default, and may be controlled using tools::startDynamicHelp(). With this enabled, HTML help pages will be generated on request, resolving links by searching through the current .libPaths().
help.start() no longer sets options(htmlhelp = TRUE) (it used to on Unix but not on Windows).
help(offline = TRUE) now calls a function offline_help_helper() if this exists in the workspace or further down the search path, otherwise the function of that name in the 'utils' name space.
For the default helper, options(offline_PDF = TRUE) will select PDF output rather than the default PostScript.
R CMD check now check Rd crossreferences when as links where a package is specified (\link[pkg]{file} or \link[pkg:file]{topic}), if the package is specified,available. It notes if the package is not available, as in many cases this is an error in the link.