[R] Function hints

[Jonathan Baron]

On 06/19/06 13:13, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> > `help.search' does not allow full text search in the manpages (I can
> > imagine why (1000 hits...), but without such a thing google, for
> > instance, would probably not be half as useful as it is, right?) and
> > there is no "sorting by relevance" in the `help.search' output, I think.
> > how this sorting could be achieved is a different question, of course.
> 
> You probably want RSiteSearch("keyword", restrict="functions") (or even
> without the "restrict" part).

Yes.  The restrict part will speed things up quite a bit, if you
want to restrict to functions.

Or, alternatively, you could use Namazu (which I use to generate
what RSiteSearch provides) to generate an index specific to your
own installed functions and packages.  The trick is to cd to the
directory /usr/lib/R/library, or the equivalent, and then say

mknmz -q */html

which will pick up the html version of all the man pages
(assuming you have generated them, and I have no idea whether
this can be done on Windows).  To update, say

mknmz --update=. -q */html

Then make a bookmark for the Namazu search page in your browser,
as a local file.  (I haven't given all the details.  You have to
install Namazu and follow the instructions.)

Or, if you have a web server, you could let Google do it for
you.  But, I warn you, Google will fill up your web logs pretty
fast if you don't exclude it with robots.txt.  I don't let it
search my R stuff.

I think that Macs and various Linux versions also have other
alternative built-in search capabilities, but I haven't tried
them.  Beagle is the new Linux search tool, but I don't know what
it does.

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
Editor: Judgment and Decision Making (http://journal.sjdm.org)