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This question is about using roxygen2 and not about how to override a function.

I am using roxygen2 for a CRAN package and I am trying to achieve the following:

There is a function called my.function whose function name I want to replace with my_function.

I want to do this gradually - so for some time both functions names shall be available.

For a first step I'd like to have the following:

  1. If a user explicitly calls ?my.function they shall come to the documentation of my.function function (or to the documentation of my_function)

  2. But if a user calls help(package="myPackage") my.function shall not appear in the functions list

The background is, if a user explicitly searches for the old function name, they will still find it. But if they are just generally searching for available functions (because they are new to the package) they will only get to new name.

How can I do this?

I was experimenting with combinations of the following roxygen tags:

@noRd
@alias
@describeIn
@rdname

But I was not able to achieve my desired result. I am asking specifically about the roxgen2 documentation part, not about overriding a function in R in general.

E_net4
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Steffen Moritz
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  • Possible duplicate of [R: what's the proper way to overwrite a function from a package?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26644680/r-whats-the-proper-way-to-overwrite-a-function-from-a-package) – NelsonGon Jun 15 '19 at 14:17
  • Can't find the exact question but I've seen one before in the past. Here's another: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21921304/r-package-development-overriding-a-function-from-one-package-with-a-function-fr?rq=1 – NelsonGon Jun 15 '19 at 14:19
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    The best way to do this is to insert a call to `.Deprecated` in `my.function`, so that anyone who uses it will automatically see that it's deprecated without having to check the help. – Hong Ooi Jun 15 '19 at 19:27
  • Thanks for your hints Nelson. I edited the question to make this clearer - the question was not about a function override - but about roxygen settings for creating documentation. Think the answer of Joris and the comment of Hong should solve my problem. – Steffen Moritz Jun 16 '19 at 20:45

1 Answers1

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You can disable functions from being listed in the package manual by adding @keywords internal to the roxygen comments (see e.g. the Object documentation section of R packages), but as mentioned by Hong Ooi the proper way is probably to deprecate my.function (see the Releasing a package section of R packages).

Joris C.
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