[R] RSiteSearch for words ``as one entity''.

[Henrik Bengtsson]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 11:33 PM, Prof Brian Ripley
<ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> If firefox is involved on a Mac, that is one difference.  My Mac is using
> 'open' (the default, I believe) and that is calling Safari (the default, I
> believe).
>
> Yes, it would be the job of browseURL to encode URLs where required.  But at
> least on Windows and using the -remoteURL mechanism (as on Linux) it is not.
>  R itself does have URLencode.

Thanks for pointing out URLencode(); I'll update (my very old)
R.utils::toUrl() to use that and eventually deprecate it.

/Henrik

>
> On Thu, 11 Sep 2008, Rolf Turner wrote:
>
>>
>> On 11/09/2008, at 10:09 AM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
>>
>>        <snip>
>>
>>> As Prof. Ripley noted, try using debug(RSiteSearch) and then step
>>> through the code to see where $HOME is being added to the URL variable.
>>> That can help pin it down further. If the URL is not corrupted by the
>>> time browseURL() is called, then use debug(browseURL) to trace within
>>> that function to see if something is happening there.
>>
>>        I have done some digging.  When I do:
>>
>>        RSiteSearch("logistic regression")
>>
>>        the RSiteSearch() function calls browseURL(qstring) where qstring
>> is qs1 equal to
>>
>>
>>  "http://search.r-project.org/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query=logistic+regression&max=20&result=normal&sort=score&idxname=Rhelp02a&idxname=functions&idxname=docs"
>>
>>
>>        Similarly when I do RSiteSearch("{logistic regression}") qstring is
>> qs2 equal to
>>
>>
>>  "http://search.r-project.org/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query={logistic+regression}&max=20&result=normal&sort=score&idxname=Rhelp02a&idxname=functions&idxname=docs"
>>
>>        i.e. the same except for the braces.
>>
>>        If I do browseURL(qs1) outside of RSiteSearch() it works as
>> expected.
>>        If I do browseURL(qs2) I get the error.
>>
>>        Inside browseURL I find that it calls
>>
>>        system(paste(browser, remoteCmd, "> /dev/null 2>&1 ||", browser,
>> quotedUrl, "&"))
>>
>>        and browser is "/usr/bin/open", remoteCmd is the qstring with the
>> opening and closing
>>        quote marks attached (escaped with a ``\'') amd quotedUrl is the
>> same.  This is true
>>        irrespective of which qstring (qs1 or qs2 is used).
>>
>>        Note that the double backslash shows up in remoteCmd == quotedUrl
>> at this stage.
>>
>>        Finally I put the system command into a file ``junk'' and from the
>> command window
>>        (outside R) executed ``sh junk''.
>>
>>        With the braces around ``logistic regression'' I can the same error
>> message that
>>        I got in R.  When I simply edited out the braces, the Firefox
>> window opened at
>>        the appropriate URL.  So the problem is in those braces and the
>> single/double
>>        backslash at the start was a red herring.
>>
>>        Finally, while I was doing all this I got Henrik Bengtsson's
>> message, and tried
>>        his suggestion:
>>
>>        library(R.utils)
>>        browseURL(toUrl(qs2))
>>
>>        and BINGO!!! that worked.  (Thanks very much, Henrik.)
>>
>>        It's still mysterious why the braces have their deleterious impact
>> on my Mac
>>        but do not have that impact on Professor Ripley's machine.  (But
>> that's the
>>        story of my life:  THEY always pick on ***me***! :-) )
>>
>>        So my problem is solved --- via a workaround --- but there's still
>> some vestigial
>>        strangeness.
>>
>>        Thanks to all who helped me, especially (again) to Henrik Bengtsson
>>
>>                cheers,
>>
>>                        Rolf
>>
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>
> --
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>