[R] an R function to search on Prof. Baron's site

[Andy Bunn]

Using this function with 2.0.0 XP and Firefox 1.0 (I've rediscovered the
internet) produces a curious result.

> myString <- RSiteSearch(string = 'Ripley')
> myString
[1]
"http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/htsearch?config=htdigrun1;restrict=Rhe
lp00/archive|Rhelp01/archive|Rhelp02a/archive;format=builtin-long;sort=score
;words=Ripley;matchesperpage=10"
> version
         _
platform i386-pc-mingw32
arch     i386
os       mingw32
system   i386, mingw32
status
major    2
minor    0.0
year     2004
month    10
day      04
language R

If no browser is open, then this is the URL that is browsed in Firefox:
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/htsearch?config=htdigrun1;restrict=Rhel
p00/archive

Oddly, these two other windows are opened too:
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp01/archive/1000.html

and:
http://www.mail-archive.com/r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch/msg17461.html

This happens regardless of what the search string is. If a browser window is
open then everything works as planned. The sticky bit, obviously, is parsing
browseURL which has the same behavior if I try:
> browseURL(myString)

However, the searches:
> RSiteSearch(string = 'browseURL Firefox')
> RSiteSearch(string = 'browseURL Mozilla')

don't turn up much help! If I change browseURL to use IE then browseURL
behaves as expected:

> browseURL(myString, browser="C:/Program Files/Internet
Explorer/iexplore.exe")

Specifying Firefox explicitly in browseURL doesn't help - It still opens
three windows as above (if no browser is open):

> browseURL(myString, browser="C:/Program Files/Mozilla
Firefox/firefox.exe")

So, under Windows the 'NULL' argument in 'browser' which determines the
browser via file association isn't the problem.

Anybody know how I can make Firefox work a little more smoothly?

Thanks, Andy



> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch]On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck
> Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 11:56 PM
> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [R] an R function to search on Prof. Baron's site
>
>
> Liaw, Andy <andy_liaw <at> merck.com> writes:
>
> :
> : Inspired by the functions that Barry Rawlingson and Dave
> Forrest posted for
> : searching Rwiki and R-help archive, I've made up a function
> that does the
> : search on Prof. Baron's site (Thanks to Prof. Baron's help on
> setting up the
> : query string!):
>
> It would be nice if this and the other search functions recently
> posted were collected into a package or even integrated into
> R itself.  In the case of the Windows Rgui, it would be nice if they
> appeared on a menu with the other search and help functions.
>
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