[Rd] proposed changes to RSiteSearch

spencerg spencer.graves at prodsyse.com
Wed Jun 3 23:37:33 CEST 2009


Hello All: 


      What do you think of adding a function "RSiteSeach" to the package 
of that name, masking the "RSiteSearch" function in "utils", trapping 
any call RSiteSearch('searchstring', 'function') to the current 
RSiteSearch.function and passing all others to "utils:::RSiteSearch"?  
This was suggested by a referee to a manuscript on this new capability 
submitted to "R Journal".  The current version of this manuscript is 
available via "system.file('doc', 'RSiteSearch.pdf', 
package='RSiteSearch')" if you have the "RSiteSearch" package installed. 


      Thanks,
      Best Wishes,
      Spencer


Liaw, Andy wrote:
>  I agree!  Recall, though, I had added the RSiteSearch() functionality
> to the Rgui under Windows (Help / search.r-project.org...), so if
> RSiteSearch() is taken out, this need to go, too.
>
> Best,
> Andy
>
> From: Jonathan Baron
>   
>> There is something to be said for taking all of these functions,
>> including the original RSiteSearch, out of utils and putting them in
>> the new RSiteSearch package.  These are the sorts of things that will
>> get revised frequently, and this way (I think) we won't have to bother
>> whoever takes care of utils, which is part of the regular R
>> distribution.
>>
>> I'm adding Spencer Graves to the cc list.  Maybe he is interested in
>> doing this.
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> On 05/07/09 20:54, Romain Francois wrote:
>>     
>>> We could have a few functions similar to RSiteSearch or 
>>>       
>> gmaneSearch I 
>>     
>>> just posted and then cook a summary html page with R ...
>>>
>>> Here is a function that grabs relevant groups from gmane:
>>>
>>> gmaneGroups <- function( prefix = "gmane.comp.lang.r." ){
>>>     url <- URLencode( sprintf( 
>>> "http://dir.gmane.org/index.php?prefix=%s", prefix) )
>>>     txt <- grep( '^<tr.*<td align=right.*<a', readLines( 
>>>       
>> url ), value = 
>>     
>>> TRUE )
>>>    
>>>     rx <- '^.*?<a href="(.*?)">(.*?)</a>.*<td>(.*?)</td>.*$'
>>>     out <- data.frame(
>>>         url = gsub( rx, "\\1", txt ),
>>>         group = gsub( rx, "\\2", txt ),
>>>         description = gsub( rx, "\\3", txt ),
>>>         stringsAsFactors = FALSE
>>>         )
>>>     out$group <- sub( "...", ".*", out$group, fixed = TRUE )
>>>     out
>>> }
>>>
>>> I'll clean this up and write a man page if there is 
>>>       
>> interest in adding 
>>     
>>> this to R, but this might be more appropriate in a package, 
>>>       
>> for example: 
>>     
>>> http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/rsitesearch/
>>>
>>> Romain
>>>
>>> Liaw, Andy wrote:
>>>       
>>>> From: Jonathan Baron
>>>>   
>>>>         
>>>>> On 05/07/09 13:48, Liaw, Andy wrote:
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>> From: Duncan Murdoch 
>>>>>>       
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> I'll incorporate the changes if you like
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>>>               
>>>>> Yes.  Please do.  I understand that it won't take effect 
>>>>>           
>> for a while.
>>     
>>>>> When it does, I'll change my site.
>>>>>
>>>>>   What do you think 
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>>> of the idea 
>>>>>>> of adding a gmane (or other archive) search to your results 
>>>>>>> page?  Then 
>>>>>>> if someone doesn't like what the man pages show, you can 
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>>>               
>>>>> send them 
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>>> somewhere else, rather than leaving them to find out the 
>>>>>>> other resources 
>>>>>>> themselves.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> gmane has sample code for this on their search page 
>>>>>>> search.gmane.org, so 
>>>>>>> it looks reasonably easy.  I'd suggest following their 
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>>>               
>>>>> last example, 
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>>> with a drop-down box to select mailing lists, with 
>>>>>>> comp.lang.r.* as an 
>>>>>>> option for "all lists".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>>>               
>>>>> Good idea.  I will do this.  But there are also two 
>>>>>           
>> other good search
>>     
>>>>> engines.  Maybe I'll add all three search alternatives.  
>>>>>           
>> But then,
>>     
>>>>> according to Sheena Iyengar, people won't choose any!  Hmm.
>>>>>
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Actually, I was thinking about a possible RHelpSearch() in 
>>>>>>       
>>>>>>             
>>>>> addition, if
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Jon is no longer going to include the R-help archive in the 
>>>>>>       
>>>>>>             
>>>>> search.  I
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>> used the current RSiteSearch() a lot more for searching 
>>>>>>       
>>>>>>             
>>>>> R-help archive
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>>>> than functions in packages.  Ideas?  comments?
>>>>>>       
>>>>>>             
>>>>> This is OK with me, but I don't want to do it.  I guess it would
>>>>> search gmane.  MarkMail is also pretty good, as is
>>>>> http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/ All these are much better than
>>>>> Namazu for searching the R-help list.
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>>> Sorry I didn't make it clear:  I meant something like the 
>>>>         
>> gmaneSearcg()
>>     
>>>> that Romain posted, not hitting your site.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Andy
>>>>  
>>>>   
>>>>         
>>>>> Jon
>>>>>     
>>>>>           
>>> -- 
>>> Romain Francois
>>> Independent R Consultant
>>> +33(0) 6 28 91 30 30
>>> http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
>>>
>>>       
>> -- 
>> 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)
>>
>>     
> Notice:  This e-mail message, together with any attach...{{dropped:15}}



More information about the R-devel mailing list