[Rd] R search engine broken (PR#6653)

[Stéphane Gourichon]

Le lundi 8 Mars 2004 14:24, Prof Brian D Ripley a écrit :
> This has been discussed many times on R-help, which would have been a more
> appropriate forum,

Oh, sorry. 
I did check for bugs (closed or open) about this before posting, of course.

> The issue appears to be not R, not JavaScript but Java.  The latest Sun
> JVM, 1.4.2_03, does not work for us, but 1.4.2_01 does (if you can get hold
> of it) and for me under Linux 1.4.2_02 does not.  You can use earlier
> versions of Java, but not as plugins for browsers compiled under gcc 3.x.

Thanks for the tip. If a Linux-specific FAQ existed it would include it.

> On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 stephane.gourichon at lip6.fr wrote:
> > Full_Name: Stéphane Gourichon
> > Version: R 1.7.1 (2003-06-16).
>
> Time for an update?

Ah yes, I see 1.8.1 is available and even with Mandrake. Thanks.
I'm downloading it now.

> > OS: GNU/Linux
>
> That's nowhere near specific enough for such issues.

Yes, you're quite right. I was focused on platform-neutral issues.

> So please follow the advice in the FAQ and do not speculate.  It is
> probably the common factor you have missed, your Java installation.

(It's a pity that Java seems rarely to work out-of-the box on installing a 
Free OS, especially in browsers.)

I can't find anything about the search engine on 
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html

Ah, I see it. It is in the Windows-specific FAQ. 

May I suggest to make this an item in the generic FAQ since Java and 
Javascript are meant to be platform-neutral languages and the problem is not 
platform-specific ?

Also, I would suggest that the FAQ includes the wording "search engine" and 
not only "search system", because it is how the page is actually names. I 
think many people falling on that issue look for those words ("search" occurs 
many times in the FAQ).

> > Have you considered an on-line, server-based search engine ? This would
> > definitely solve the problem, (at least for thse who have Internet
> > access).
>
> We do provide help.search(), which does solve the problem.  
> The next 
> release points that out on the Java search engine page.

Yes, the search page itself is the best place to notify the user.

(Just an idea : the JavaScript code would perform return value check for the 
proper start of the java part and display a message on failure ? I don't know 
if it's possible, though.

  line = line + document.SearchEngine.search (searchTerm,
                                        searchDesc=="1",
                                        searchKeywords=="1",
                                        searchAliases=="1");
)

-- 
Stéphane Gourichon - Labo. d'Informatique de Paris 6 - AnimatLab
http://animatlab.lip6.fr/ - philo du dimanche http://amphi-gouri.org/

« La meilleure façon de prédire l'avenir, c'est de le créer » Peter Drucker