Package {lang}

Title: Translates R Help Documentation using Large Language Models
Version: 0.1.1
Description: Translates R help documentation on the fly by using a Large Language model of your choice. If you are using 'RStudio' or 'Positron' the translated help will appear in the help pane.
License: MIT + file LICENSE
URL: https://mlverse.github.io/lang/, https://github.com/mlverse/lang
BugReports: https://github.com/mlverse/lang/issues
Depends: R (≥ 4.1)
Imports: callr, cli, fs, glue, lifecycle, mall, rlang (≥ 1.1.0), rstudioapi, tools, withr
Suggests: ellmer, testthat (≥ 3.0.0)
Config/testthat/edition: 3
Config/usethis/last-upkeep: 2025-11-10
Encoding: UTF-8
Config/roxygen2/version: 8.0.0
NeedsCompilation: no
Packaged: 2026-06-05 15:48:46 UTC; edgar
Author: Edgar Ruiz [aut, cre], Posit Software, PBC ROR ID [cph, fnd]
Maintainer: Edgar Ruiz <edgar@posit.co>
Repository: CRAN
Date/Publication: 2026-06-05 16:10:09 UTC

lang: Translates R Help Documentation using Large Language Models

Description

logo

Translates R help documentation on the fly by using a Large Language model of your choice. If you are using 'RStudio' or 'Positron' the translated help will appear in the help pane.

Author(s)

Maintainer: Edgar Ruiz edgar@posit.co

Authors:

Other contributors:

See Also

Useful links:

Drop-in replacements for help and ? functions

Description

The ⁠?⁠ and help functions are drop-in replacements for those in the utils package. They automatically translate help to the language specified by the LANG or LANGUAGE environment variables, or by lang_use().

Usage

# help(topic, package = NULL, ...)

# ?e2
# e1?e2

Arguments

topic

A name or character string specifying the help topic.

package

A name or character string specifying the package in which to search for the help topic. If NULL, search all packages.

...

Additional arguments to pass to utils::help().

e1

First argument to pass along to ⁠utils::⁠?“.

e2

Second argument to pass along to ⁠utils::⁠?“.

Translates help documentation to another language

Description

Translates a given topic into a target language. It uses the lang argument to determine which language to translate to. If not passed, this function will look for a target language in the LANG and LANGUAGE environment variables, or if something has been passed to the .lang argument in lang_use(), to determine the target language. If the target language is English, no translation will be processed, so the help returned will be the original package's documentation.

Usage

lang_help(
  topic,
  package = NULL,
  lang = NULL,
  context_size = NULL,
  type = getOption("help_type")
)

Arguments

topic

A character string specifying the help topic to translate.

package

The R package to look for the topic, if not provided the function will attempt to find the topic based on the loaded packages.

lang

A character vector language to translate the topic to

context_size

Maximum number of words for the context summary included with each translation request. Set to 0 to disable context-aware translation. When NULL, the value set via lang_use() is used (default 100).

type

Produce "html" or "text" output for the help. It defaults to getOption("help_type")

Value

Original or translated version of the help documentation in the output type specified

Examples

## Not run: 
# Requires an interactive session with Ollama running locally
library(lang)

lang_use("ollama", "llama3.2", seed = 100)

lang_help("lang_help", lang = "spanish", type = "text")

## End(Not run)

Specifies the LLM provider and model to use during the R session

Description

Specifies the back-end provider and model to use during the current R session. The target language is not processed by the function, as in converting "english" to "en" for example. The value is passed directly to the LLM, and it lets the LLM interpret the target language.

Usage

lang_use(
  backend = NULL,
  model = NULL,
  .cache = NULL,
  .lang = NULL,
  .context_size = NULL,
  .silent = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

backend

"ollama" or an ellmer Chat object. If using "ollama", lang provides built-in support via the ollamar package. Defaults to "ollama".

model

The name of model supported by the back-end provider

.cache

Character path where translations are cached. Set to "" to disable caching. When NULL, the current session value is kept unchanged. Defaults to a temporary folder.

.lang

Target language to translate to. This will override values found in the LANG and LANGUAGE environment variables.

.context_size

Maximum number of words for the context summary included with each translation request. Set to 0 to disable context-aware translation. Defaults to 100.

.silent

Boolean flag that controls whether there is output to the console. Defaults to FALSE.

...

Additional arguments that this function will pass down to the integrating function. In the case of Ollama, it will pass those arguments to ollamar::chat().

Value

Invisibly returns NULL. Prints the current configuration to the console.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Requires an interactive session with Ollama or another LLM provider
library(lang)

# Using an `ellmer` chat object
lang_use(ellmer::chat_openai(model = "gpt-4o"))

# Using Ollama directly
lang_use("ollama", "llama3.2", seed = 100)

# Turn off cache by setting `.cache` to ""
lang_use("ollama", "llama3.2", seed = 100, .cache = "")

# Use `.lang` to set the target language to translate to,
# it will be set for the current R session
lang_use("ollama", "llama3.2", .lang = "spanish")

# Use `.silent` to avoid console output
lang_use("ollama", "llama3.2", .lang = "spanish", .silent = TRUE)

# To see current settings, simply call the function
lang_use()

## End(Not run)