Writing a package vignette with R markdown

When we develop our R package, we can also add documents in other formats than the .Rd format we talked about earlier. Normally we save them in the inst/doc folder in our package directory.

These documents are called vignettes and can be described as long-form documentation. These documents usually do not explain the package based on the functions, but on use cases or workflows we normally would use this package for. We can say that a vignette describes our package on a higher level and with more context than the classical documentation file. A definition accepted by many R users is: vignettes are optional supplemental documentation.

That is, they are in addition to the required boilerplate documentation for R functions and dataset. Vignettes are written in the spirit of sharing knowledge, and assisting new users in learning the purpose and use of a package.

Vignettes are included in many packages. We can take a look at the vignettes of our installed...