[R] Were to find appropriate functions for a given task in R

[Berton Gunter]

1. Check out the R reference card at
http://www.rpad.org/Rpad/Rpad-refcard.pdf . There are also several others
available from the CRAN website.

2. Check out TINN-R, a Windows text/R code editor that integrates the above
and provides function "tips" inline to give the syntax of many R functions.

3. ?help.search

4. ?RSiteSearch (or search CRAN directly using Jon Baron's search engine).

These do not eliminate the problem, but hopefully mitigate it. Given that
there are several thousand R functions spread among hundreds of packages at
at least three separate repositories (CRAN, BioConductor, and Omegahat),
it's clearly a nontrivial issue. But that's why Google and other search
services are multibillion dollar companies.

HTH

Cheers,
Bert
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch 
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Albert Sorribas
> Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 8:32 AM
> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: [R] Were to find appropriate functions for a given task in R
> 
> This is a generic request concerning were to look for finding
> appropriate information on a precise procedure in R.
> Im using R for teaching introductory statistics and my students are
> learning how to deal with it. However, I find it difficult to locate
> some of the procedures. For instance, for basic crosstabulation, it is
> obvious that basic functions as table, ftable, and prop.table can be
> used. But there is a CrossTable function that is very useful. This is
> hidden in gmodels and gregmisc, as far as Ive been able to 
> explore the
> packages. However, there is no way (unless I sit down to r-help for
> hours) to be sure if there is some other place in which a very useful
> function is hidden for table manipulation (for instance 
> controlling for
> other variables). This is only an example. But there are many 
> more. Were
> to look for CI for proportions? I can find it but it is not easy.
> 
> I understand R is more appropriate for difficult statistical 
> procedures
> (glm and similar), BUT students need to start somewhere.
> 
> My specific claim is about the need for a sort of guide in which the
> different procedures could be classified (and some 
> redundancies could be
> deleted..by the way). Is there something similar around? Any project
> working on this? Any clue for?
> 
> If not, I would suggest starting some kind of easy reference based on
> the problem to solve. This could indicate were to look for. Last day I
> find in package vcd that a function exist for testing the
> goodness-of-fit of a sample to binomial and other distributions.but
> this was VERY difficult to locate. 
> 
> Any way, as usual, any indication will be very useful 
> (spaecially for my
> students!!!)
> 
> 
> 
> Albert Sorribas
> Professor of Statistics and Operational Research
> Departament de Cihncies Mhdiques B`siques
> Universitat de Lleida
> Montserrat Roig 2
> 25008-Lleida (Espanya)
> web.udl.es/Biomath/Group
>  
> 
> 
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> 
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