R function help in `.tex` or `.Rnw` format

Question

I can get help on any R function in html format using ? or help(). I wonder if I can get help on R functions in .tex or .Rnw format to use in .tex dociument. Thanks in advance for your help.

?lm

Answer 1

I found a blog post by Noam Ross that references this problem here: http://www.r-bloggers.com/printing-r-help-files-in-the-console-or-in-knitr-documents/

The function is available in Noam's package noamtools available via github

 library(devtools)
 install_github("noamtools", "noamross")
 library(noamtools)
 help_console(lm, format = "latex")

For sake of posterity the function they create is

help_console <- function(topic, format=c("text", "html", "latex", "Rd"),
                         lines=NULL, before=NULL, after=NULL) {  
  format=match.arg(format)
  if (!is.character(topic)) topic <- deparse(substitute(topic))
  helpfile = utils:::.getHelpFile(help(topic))

  hs <- capture.output(switch(format, 
                              text=tools:::Rd2txt(helpfile),
                              html=tools:::Rd2HTML(helpfile),
                              latex=tools:::Rd2latex(helpfile),
                              Rd=tools:::prepare_Rd(helpfile)
                              )
                      )
  if(!is.null(lines)) hs <- hs[lines]
  hs <- c(before, hs, after)
  cat(hs, sep="\n")
  invisible(hs)
}

Use it like this to get latex output

help_console(lm, format = "latex")