R-alpha: Re: ?"+"; ALIAS(Arithmetic)
Martin Maechler
Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sat, 2 Aug 1997 17:55:05 +0200
>>>>> "Kurt" == Kurt Hornik <hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:
>>>>> Patrick Lindsey writes:
>> Problems in R but not in S: ---------------------------
......
>> 3) Some problems occur when using the help. Eg.,
R> ?"+"
>> sorry, no help for "Arithmetic".
R>
>> This occurs in R-0.49 and in R-0.50-a1 and seems to be the case for
>> any item contained in a help file starting with a capital letter.
Kurt> The problem is as follows. The function help() catches the
Kurt> special funs like "+" etc (more precisely, the arithmetic,
Kurt> comparison, logic and extract ones) and directly assigns a topic
Kurt> for them.
Kurt> For "+", the topic is 'Arithmetic". But the index file has no
Kurt> entry for that, because (see RHOME/etc/install-help)
.......
Kurt> If that really is the intended usage (Martin?), then e.g. the
Kurt> Arithmetic file should also have ALIAS(Arithmetic) in it.
Yes, this is the thing to do.
It was R&R's idea to change the usage of ALIAS(.).
[[Again: an ALIAS(..) should be made for EVERY R object that is
documented in that man file, and sometimes even for things such as
Special or Arithmetic
]]
The current etc/install-help
was made by me in order to merge the former install-help and
install-libhelp (Kurt, this answers another question of you) and
reflects the fact that the help files in the libraries have not (yet!?)
been adapted to the new scheme.
I think, we should decide to upgrade the help files of the libraries --
(eda & mva) and ALL the 'contrib' ones !! -- to the new scheme.
The only thing: The upgrade should happen 'SIMULTANEOUSLY'
such that a simple change to etc/install-help then would make things work.
A good time to do this would be "about now", i.e. before another alpha
release and (somewhat ?) close to THE 0.50 beta relase...
- Martin
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