[R] changes in RSiteSearch

[Jonathan Baron]

Because of the enormous volume of mail on R-help, I have split up the
search archives in my R Site, which you can access directly (and
slightly differently) at:
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/nmz.html
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/search.html
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/
or
http://search.r-project.org

The new set of search options looks like this:
* Functions
* R-help 2008- New!
  R-help 2002-2007
  R-help 1997-2001
  R-devel

The * indicates the default.  This is now also the default for
RSiteSearch().  This means that the default search will get messages
only since January 1, 2008.

######

Some details:

In the function RSiteSearch(), the "restrict" option is now set as
restrict = c("Rhelp02a", "functions", "docs")
Rhelp02a now points to Rhelp08, so it includes only messages since
January 1, 2008.  If you want the old behavior, you need to change
your options, e.g.,
restrict = c("Rhelp02", "Rhelp08", "functions")
Note, however, that some people find that the old behavior brings
up too many out-of-date messages.  You might want to try the current
settings first.

The "docs" does nothing and should be removed.  (Every single search
used to bring up the manual.)

The next version of R (expected in April) should have:
restrict = c("Rhelp", "functions")
as the default.

Rhelp will (and does now) point to Rhelp08.

There is a minor issue having to do with messages in the archives that
refer to other messages in the archives by number.  With some effort,
I have attempted to keep this working, and I might have succeeded,
although I have not bothered to test it.

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron