r-lib · hadley · Jul 5, 2026 · Jul 5, 2026 · Jul 5, 2026
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # roxygen2 (development version)
 
+* Markdown processing now handles multibyte characters inside Rd tags correctly; previously a tag like `\code{café}` would corrupt the markdown interpretation of the text that followed it.
+* Markdown warnings triggered by a `rd_family_title` prefix (e.g. for an unsupported level 1 heading) no longer error.
 * Markdown link targets are now resolved against a per-run index of each package's help topics, instead of one `help()` call per topic and package. This substantially speeds up documenting packages with many cross-reference links, e.g. `roxygenize()` on testthat is about a third faster.
 * S7 methods for `[`, `[[`, `[<-`, and `[[<-` now generate valid usage (#1883).
 * `Config/roxygen2/` flag fields in `DESCRIPTION` (like `markdown`) are now parsed case-insensitively, so `true` and `True` work as well as `TRUE`, and an invalid value gives a clear error (#1875).

diff --git a/R/markdown-code.R b/R/markdown-code.R
@@ -49,6 +49,12 @@
 #' @keywords internal
 markdown_evaluate <- function(text) {
   text <- paste(text, collapse = "\n")
+  # Code is delimited by backticks (`r ...`, ``` fences) or tilde fences
+  # (~~~{r}), so without either we can skip the (relatively expensive)
+  # markdown parsing altogether
+  if (!grepl("[`~]", text)) {
+    return(text)
+  }
   mdxml <- xml_ns_strip(md_to_mdxml(text, sourcepos = TRUE))
   code_nodes <- xml_find_all(mdxml, ".//code | .//code_block")
   rcode_nodes <- keep(code_nodes, is_markdown_code_node)
@@ -165,7 +171,7 @@ re_set_all_pos <- function(text, pos, value, nodes) {
   # continuation lines: https://github.com/commonmark/cmark/issues/296
   types <- xml_name(nodes)
   if (any(types == "code" & pos$start_line != pos$end_line)) {
-    cli::cli_abort("multi-line `r ` markup is not supported", call = NULL)
+    cli::cli_abort("Multi-line `r ` markup is not supported.", call = NULL)
   }
 
   # Need to split the string, because of the potential multi-line

diff --git a/R/markdown-escaping.R b/R/markdown-escaping.R
@@ -4,12 +4,9 @@
 #' `escape_rd_for_md()` replaces fragile Rd tags with placeholders, to avoid
 #' interpreting them as markdown. `unescape_rd_for_md()` puts the original
 #' text back in place of the placeholders after the markdown parsing is done.
-#' The fragile tags are listed in `escaped_for_md`.
-#'
-#' Some Rd macros are treated specially:
-#'
-#' * For `if`, markdown is only allowed in the second argument.
-#' * For `ifelse` markdown is allowed in the second and third arguments.
+#' The fragile tags are listed in `escaped_for_md`. A fragile tag is
+#' protected together with all of its brace arguments, so markdown is never
+#' interpreted inside them.
 #'
 #' @param text Input text. Potentially contains Rd and/or
 #'   markdown markup.

diff --git a/R/markdown.R b/R/markdown.R
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 markdown <- function(text, tag = NULL, sections = FALSE) {
-  tag <- tag %||% list(file = NA, line = NA)
   expanded_text <- tryCatch(
     markdown_evaluate(text),
     error = function(e) {
@@ -17,199 +16,6 @@ markdown <- function(text, tag = NULL, sections = FALSE) {
   )
 }
 
-#' Expand the embedded inline code
-#'
-#' @details
-#' For example this becomes two: `r 1+1`.
-#' Variables can be set and then reused, within the same
-#' tag: `r x <- 100; NULL`
-#' The value of `x` is `r x`.
-#'
-#' We have access to the internal functions of the package, e.g.
-#' since this is _roxygen2_, we can refer to the internal `markdown`
-#' function, and this is `TRUE`: `r is.function(markdown)`.
-#'
-#' To insert the name of the current package: `r packageName()`.
-#'
-#' The `iris` data set has `r ncol(iris)` columns:
-#' `r paste0("\x60\x60", colnames(iris), "\x60\x60", collapse = ", ")`.
-#'
-#' ```{r}
-#' # Code block demo
-#' x + 1
-#' ```
-#'
-#' Chunk options:
-#'
-#' ```{r results = "hold"}
-#' names(mtcars)
-#' nrow(mtcars)
-#' ```
-#'
-#' Plots:
-#'
-#' ```{r test-figure}
-#' plot(1:10)
-#' ```
-#'
-#' Alternative knitr engines:
-#'
-#' ```{verbatim}
-#' #| file = "tests/testthat/example.Rmd"
-#' ```
-#'
-#' Also see `vignette("rd-formatting")`.
-#'
-#' @param text Input text.
-#' @return
-#' Text with R code expanded.
-#' A character vector of the same length as the input `text`.
-#'
-#' @keywords internal
-
-markdown_pass1 <- function(text) {
-  text <- paste(text, collapse = "\n")
-  mdxml <- xml_ns_strip(md_to_mdxml(text, sourcepos = TRUE))
-  code_nodes <- xml_find_all(mdxml, ".//code | .//code_block")
-  rcode_nodes <- keep(code_nodes, is_markdown_code_node)
-  if (length(rcode_nodes) == 0) {
-    return(text)
-  }
-  rcode_pos <- parse_md_pos(map_chr(rcode_nodes, xml_attr, "sourcepos"))
-  rcode_pos <- work_around_cmark_sourcepos_bug(text, rcode_pos)
-  out <- eval_code_nodes(rcode_nodes)
-  re_set_all_pos(text, rcode_pos, out, rcode_nodes)
-}
-
-# Work around commonmark sourcepos bug for inline R code
-# https://github.com/r-lib/roxygen2/issues/1353
-work_around_cmark_sourcepos_bug <- function(text, rcode_pos) {
-  if (Sys.getenv("ROXYGEN2_NO_SOURCEPOS_WORKAROUND", "") != "") {
-    return(rcode_pos)
-  }
-
-  lines <- strsplit(text, "\n", fixed = TRUE)[[1]]
-
-  for (l in seq_len(nrow(rcode_pos))) {
-    # Do not try to fix multi-line code, we error for that (below)
-    if (rcode_pos$start_line[l] != rcode_pos$end_line[l]) {
-      next
-    }
-    line <- lines[rcode_pos$start_line[l]]
-    start <- rcode_pos$start_column[l]
-
-    # Maybe correct? At some point this will be fixed upstream, hopefully.
-    if (substr(line, start - 1, start + 1) == "`r ") {
-      next
-    }
-
-    # Maybe indented and we can shift it?
-    # It is possible that the shift that we try accidentally matches
-    # "`r ", but it seems to be extremely unlikely. An example is this:
-    # #'       ``1`r `` `r 22*10`
-    # (seven spaces after the #', so an indent of six spaces. If we shift
-    # the real "`r " left by six characters, there happens to be another
-    # "`r " there.
-
-    m <- regexpr("^[ ]+", line)
-    indent <- attr(m, "match.length")
-    if (
-      m > 0L &&
-        substr(line, start - 1 + indent, start + 1 + indent) == "`r "
-    ) {
-      rcode_pos$start_column[l] <- rcode_pos$start_column[l] + indent
-      rcode_pos$end_column[l] <- rcode_pos$end_column[l] + indent
-    }
-  }
-
-  rcode_pos
-}
-
-is_markdown_code_node <- function(x) {
-  info <- xml_attr(x, "info")
-  substr(xml_text(x), 1, 2) == "r " ||
-    (!is.na(info) && grepl("^[{][a-zA-z]+[}, ]", info))
-}
-
-parse_md_pos <- function(text) {
-  nums <- map(strsplit(text, "[:-]"), as.integer)
-  data.frame(
-    start_line = map_int(nums, \(x) x[[1]]),
-    start_column = map_int(nums, \(x) x[[2]]),
-    end_line = map_int(nums, \(x) x[[3]]),
-    end_column = map_int(nums, \(x) x[[4]])
-  )
-}
-
-eval_code_nodes <- function(nodes) {
-  evalenv <- roxy_meta_get("evalenv")
-  # This should only happen in our test cases
-  if (is.null(evalenv)) {
-    evalenv <- new.env(parent = baseenv())
-  }
-
-  map_chr(nodes, eval_code_node, env = evalenv)
-}
-
-eval_code_node <- function(node, env) {
-  if (xml_name(node) == "code") {
-    # write knitr markup for inline code
-    text <- paste0("`", xml_text(node), "`")
-  } else {
-    lang <- xml_attr(node, "info")
-    # write knitr markup for fenced code
-    text <- paste0("```", if (!is.na(lang)) lang, "\n", xml_text(node), "```\n")
-  }
-
-  chunk_opts <- utils::modifyList(
-    knitr_chunk_defaults(),
-    as.list(roxy_meta_get("knitr_chunk_options", NULL))
-  )
-
-  roxy_knit(text, env, chunk_opts)
-}
-
-knitr_chunk_defaults <- function() {
-  list(
-    error = FALSE,
-    fig.path = "man/figures/",
-    fig.process = basename,
-    comment = "#>",
-    collapse = TRUE
-  )
-}
-
-re_set_all_pos <- function(text, pos, value, nodes) {
-  # Cmark has a bug when reporting source positions for multi-line
-  # code tags, and it does not count the indenting space in the
-  # continuation lines: https://github.com/commonmark/cmark/issues/296
-  types <- xml_name(nodes)
-  if (any(types == "code" & pos$start_line != pos$end_line)) {
-    cli::cli_abort("Multi-line `r ` markup is not supported.", call = NULL)
-  }
-
-  # Need to split the string, because of the potential multi-line
-  # code tags, and then also recode the positions
-  lens <- nchar(strsplit(text, "\n", fixed = TRUE)[[1]])
-  shifts <- c(0, cumsum(lens + 1L))
-  shifts <- shifts[-length(shifts)]
-  start <- shifts[pos$start_line] + pos$start_column
-  end <- shifts[pos$end_line] + pos$end_column
-
-  # Create intervals for the parts we keep
-  keep_start <- c(1, end + 2L)
-  keep_end <- c(start - 2L, nchar(text))
-
-  # Now piece them together
-  out <- paste0(
-    substring(text, keep_start, keep_end),
-    c(value, ""),
-    collapse = ""
-  )
-  attributes(out) <- attributes(text)
-  out
-}
-
 markdown_pass2 <- function(text, tag = NULL, sections = FALSE) {
   esc_text_linkrefs <- add_linkrefs_to_md(text)
 
@@ -552,11 +358,16 @@ escape_comment <- function(x) {
 mdxml_heading <- function(xml, state) {
   level <- xml_attr(xml, "level")
   if (!state$has_sections && level == 1) {
+    if (is.null(state$tag)) {
+      tag_name <- "this tag"
+    } else {
+      tag_name <- paste0("@", state$tag$tag)
+    }
     warn_roxy_tag(
       state$tag,
       c(
         "markdown translation failed",
-        x = "Level 1 headings are not supported in @{state$tag$tag}",
+        x = "Level 1 headings are not supported in {tag_name}",
         i = "Do you want to put the heading in @description or @details?"
       )
     )

diff --git a/R/rd-family.R b/R/rd-family.R
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ topics_process_family_prefix <- function(family) {
     return(default)
   }
 
-  prefix <- markdown(prefix, tag = "family")
+  prefix <- markdown(prefix)
   # Ensure prefix ends with a colon (#1656)
   if (!grepl(":$", prefix)) {
     prefix <- paste0(prefix, ":")

diff --git a/man/markdown-internals.Rd b/man/markdown-internals.Rd
diff --git a/man/markdown_pass1.Rd b/man/markdown_pass1.Rd