[R] RSiteSearch() not in posting guide

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "Gabor" == Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
>>>>>     on Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:29:07 -0400 writes:

    Gabor> I think the posting guide may have been written prior
    Gabor> to the existence of RSiteSearch as a builtin command.

yes, that's correct.

Thank you, Gavin, for the suggestion.
I have added such a "bullet".  Visible now at svn.r-project.org,
and from tomorrow at the URL at the tail of every R-help
message.

Martin

    Gabor> On 7/18/06, Gavin Simpson <gavin.simpson at ucl.ac.uk>
    Gabor> wrote:
    >> Hi,
    >> 
    >> In a recent reply I sent to the list, my initial response
    >> was to suggest, politely that by reading the posting
    >> guide and learning to use the supplied tools one can
    >> often help oneself. I then went on to say that reading
    >> the posting guide would have led you to
    >> RSiteSearch("insert query"). Luckily I went to the
    >> posting guide to check this was there before posting and
    >> much to my surprise that page does not once mention this
    >> excellent facility!
    >> 
    >> In the section "Do your homework before posting:",
    >> help.search() and ?foo are recommended, but these only
    >> work for installed, and possibly loaded,
    >> packages. Wouldn't it be better to suggest a user try
    >> RSiteSearch("foo") as well? This way they are far more
    >> likely to find something relevant if that something
    >> resides on CRAN or the mailing list archives.
    >> 
    >> Can I suggest adding another bullet with the following
    >> text to the "Do your homework before posting:" section:
    >> 
    >> Do RSiteSearch("keyword") with different keywords (type
    >> this at the R prompt) to search R, contributed packages
    >> and R-Help postings. To restrict the search to functions
    >> only, use RSiteSearch("keyword", restrict =
    >> "functions"). See ?RSiteSearch.
    >> 
    >> or shorter:
    >> 
    >> Do RSiteSearch("keyword") with different keywords (type
    >> this at the R prompt) to search R functions, contributed
    >> packages and R-Help postings.  See ?RSiteSearch for
    >> further options and to restrict searches.
    >> 
    >> G
    >> --
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    >> Gavin Simpson [t] +44 (0)20 7679 0522 ECRC & ENSIS, UCL
    >> Geography, [f] +44 (0)20 7679 0565 Pearson Building, [e]
    >> gavin.simpsonATNOSPAMucl.ac.uk Gower Street, London [w]
    >> http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucfagls/cv/ London, UK. WC1E 6BT.
    >> [w] http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucfagls/
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    >>