[Rd] proposed changes to RSiteSearch

[Romain Francois]

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