RE^2: [Rd] New generic functions in "R base" {was `truncate'}

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 25 May 2001, Paul Gilbert wrote:

> PG> Some search/browse capability sure would be nice and I think this
> PG> problem is going to get worse with the elimination of function.html in R
> PG> 1.3.0.  Perhaps there is a possibility of putting a giant index of all
> PG> functions in all packages on CRAN?
>
> BDR>Not only is it nice, but we do already have it, twice, in fact!
> BDR>
> BDR>There are two search/browse facilities for all current libraries (and I
> BDR>mean that, not packages), namely help.search() and the Java-based HTML
> BDR>search.  Try them some time!
>
> Brian
>
> Yes, I have tried these and they are very useful, but I believe they only work for
> installed packages. If I am wrong about that then something else is broken since your
> example gives this for me:
>
> > help.search("confidence interval")
> No help files found with alias or title matching `confidence interval'

Nothing does uninstalled packages, as R has no means of knowing about
them!  help.search does search un-loaded packages, as in my example.  In
fact the same set as the function list (on Unix).  Looks as if something
may be wrong your end: if MASS is in some library it should be found.

[1] ".GlobalEnv"    "package:ctest" "Autoloads"     "package:base"
> help.search("confidence interval")
Help files with alias or title matching `confidence interval':
Type `?FOO' to inspect entry `FOO(PKG) TITLE'.

confint(MASS)                 Confidence Intervals for Model Parameters
...

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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