[Rd] Shortcuts for help functions

[Yan Wong]

Hi,

This is a short suggestion for an improvement to R that I can code up  
if it is deemed sensible.

While learning to use R, I found myself using help.search  
extensively, and would have made use of RSiteSearch had I realised  
that it was available.

I suggest that "shortcuts" to these functions could be coded, with  
increasing numbers of question marks corresponding to increasing  
desperation on the part of the user, so that

?topic    ---  invokes help("topic") (as currently)

??topic   ---  invokes help.search("topic")

???topic  ---  invokes RSiteSearch("topic", restrict = c("functions",  
"docs"))
                #don't search in the mailing lists - they can be  
confusing to a beginner

????topic ---  invokes RSiteSearch("topic", )
                #search very widely

It may be that my distinction between ??? and ???? is too fine, and  
it would be preferable just to have a single invocation of RSiteSearch.

I have actually coded this up: it requires minor modification of src/ 
main/gram.y to recognise "??", "???", and "????" as valid unary  
operators, then addition of code such as the following to src/library/ 
utils/R/question.R

### Example of help.search shortcut.
"??" <- function(e1)
{
     e1Expr <- substitute(e1)
     e1 <- as.character(e1Expr)
     eval(substitute(help.search(PATTERN), list(PATTERN = e1)))
}
#### End

Does this seem like a sensible idea? If so, in what form should I  
send the patches? I had a quick scan of the R-devel pages but  
couldn't easily see what the preferred method for patch submission was.

Thanks

Yan

--
H. Y. Wong
University of Leeds