[R] Help on getting help from manuals

[Kevin E. Thorpe]

Claudia Beleites wrote:
> ManInMoon wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A number of people have suggested "I read the manuals"...
>>
>> Could someone help me by telling me where the primary start point is 
>> please?
> In R, type
> help.start ()
> this should open a browser window with links to
> - the packages
> - the manuals
> - a search engine
> Please note: this is written in section 1.7 "Getting help with functions 
> and features" of Introduction to R
> In the same section, you learn about
> help.search
> 
> Note also:
> ? help
> leads you to the man page describing the help system. In section "see 
> also" you find a list of other useful commands to find help
> 
> If you look them up and look a again what alternatives they suggest and 
> actually try them out (again with topic "help") you will come across all 
> informations about finding help on R topics that is written in this email.
> 
> 
> - There also exists apropos ().
> - In addition, e.g. reading this mailing list, you learn about the sos 
> package.
> - You can also use the internet resources: on r-project.org -> manuals
> 
> - I personally use a lot:
> http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi (which is where 
> RSiteSearch () gets you). You can nicely decide where to search: 
> documentation of R and CRAN packages, and/or the mailing list archives.
> 
> Homework try out & read the results of:
> RSiteSearch ("help")
> 
>>
>> For example, I am interested in writing functions with variable number of
>> arguments - where should I start to look?
>>
>> "An introduction to R" only show a brief example - with no pointer to 
>> where
>> to find further data.
>>
>> I can't do ?xxx from R console in most cases - as I don't know what the
>> function name is that I am looking for!!!
> Then do
> ??xxx
> or
> ???xxx (needs sos)
> or
> RSiteSearch ("xxx")
> or
> apropos ("xxx")
> ...
> which you could have found out by reading
> ? help
> 
> 
>>
>> People have helped me find "substitute" to get some metadata out - BUT 
>> how
>> could I have found that without guidance from nice people in Nabble?
>>
>> Any help on this very much appreciated.
> 
> Sometimes it _is_ difficult to find the correct search terms.
> However, I think that people in this list will appreciate if you
> - show that you did search before asking, and also tell then with which 
> terms you did the search
> - particularly for questions about the meaning of commands:
>   Try them out!
>   Put the command into pieces and look what each piece does
> - people will appreciate if you ask what the correct search terms are 
> for your problem (as opposed to ask them doing your "homework")
>   Learning R is learning a language. Including vocabulary (i.e. terms 
> for the different concepts).
>   Asking for help with searching is like asking "How do you say in R for 
> concept xyz?" instead of "Could anyone do the translation I got as 
> homework?"
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Claudia
> 
> 
> 

This is all great advice for you "ManInMoon."  One additional comment. 
When you have read the help page and don't understand something.  You 
will get far better answers here to explain what you have tried and what 
you don't understand.  Failure to do that makes it appear that you are 
too lazy to be bothered to try and solve your problems.  I'm not saying 
you are, it's how it appears (hence my terse reply the other day).

Also, at the bottom of every r-help email is a link to the "Posting 
Guide."  Following the instructions there, for example, creating a toy 
example that illustrates your problem is often very useful in helping 
you solve the problem without posting a question.

I hope this helps.

-- 
Kevin E. Thorpe
Biostatistician/Trialist, Knowledge Translation Program
Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
University of Toronto
email: kevin.thorpe at utoronto.ca  Tel: 416.864.5776  Fax: 416.864.3016