proposed changes to RSiteSearch

Hello All: 


      What do you think of adding a function "RSiteSeach" to the package 
of that name, masking the "RSiteSearch" function in "utils", trapping 
any call RSiteSearch('searchstring', 'function') to the current 
RSiteSearch.function and passing all others to "utils:::RSiteSearch"?  
This was suggested by a referee to a manuscript on this new capability 
submitted to "R Journal".  The current version of this manuscript is 
available via "system.file('doc', 'RSiteSearch.pdf', 
package='RSiteSearch')" if you have the "RSiteSearch" package installed. 
  

      Thanks,
      Best Wishes,
      Spencer


Liaw, Andy wrote:
  

 I agree!  Recall, though, I had added the RSiteSearch() functionality
to the Rgui under Windows (Help / search.r-project.org...), so if
RSiteSearch() is taken out, this need to go, too.

Best,
Andy

From: Jonathan Baron
  
    

There is something to be said for taking all of these functions,
including the original RSiteSearch, out of utils and putting them in
the new RSiteSearch package.  These are the sorts of things that will
get revised frequently, and this way (I think) we won't have to bother
whoever takes care of utils, which is part of the regular R
distribution.

I'm adding Spencer Graves to the cc list.  Maybe he is interested in
doing this.

Jon

On 05/07/09 20:54, Romain Francois wrote:
    
      

We could have a few functions similar to RSiteSearch or 
      
        

gmaneSearch I 
    
      

just posted and then cook a summary html page with R ...

Here is a function that grabs relevant groups from gmane:

gmaneGroups <- function( prefix = "gmane.comp.lang.r." ){
    url <- URLencode( sprintf( 
"http://dir.gmane.org/index.php?prefix=%s", prefix) )
    txt <- grep( '^<tr.*<td align=right.*<a', readLines( 
      
        

url ), value = 
    
      

TRUE )
   
    rx <- '^.*?<a href="(.*?)">(.*?)</a>.*<td>(.*?)</td>.*$'
    out <- data.frame(
        url = gsub( rx, "\\1", txt ),
        group = gsub( rx, "\\2", txt ),
        description = gsub( rx, "\\3", txt ),
        stringsAsFactors = FALSE
        )
    out$group <- sub( "...", ".*", out$group, fixed = TRUE )
    out
}

I'll clean this up and write a man page if there is 
      
        

interest in adding 
    
      

this to R, but this might be more appropriate in a package, 
      
        

for example: 
    
      

http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/rsitesearch/

Romain

Liaw, Andy wrote:
      
        

From: Jonathan Baron
  
        
          

On 05/07/09 13:48, Liaw, Andy wrote:
    
          
            

From: Duncan Murdoch 
      
            
              

I'll incorporate the changes if you like
        
              
                

Yes.  Please do.  I understand that it won't take effect 
          
            

for a while.
    
      

When it does, I'll change my site.

  What do you think 
    
          
            

of the idea 
of adding a gmane (or other archive) search to your results 
page?  Then 
if someone doesn't like what the man pages show, you can 
        
              
                

send them 
    
          
            

somewhere else, rather than leaving them to find out the 
other resources 
themselves.

gmane has sample code for this on their search page 
search.gmane.org, so 
it looks reasonably easy.  I'd suggest following their 
        
              
                

last example, 
    
          
            

with a drop-down box to select mailing lists, with 
comp.lang.r.* as an 
option for "all lists".

Duncan Murdoch
        
              
                

Good idea.  I will do this.  But there are also two 
          
            

other good search
    
      

engines.  Maybe I'll add all three search alternatives.  
          
            

But then,
    
      

according to Sheena Iyengar, people won't choose any!  Hmm.

    
          
            

Actually, I was thinking about a possible RHelpSearch() in 
      
            
              

addition, if
    
          
            

Jon is no longer going to include the R-help archive in the 
      
            
              

search.  I
    
          
            

used the current RSiteSearch() a lot more for searching 
      
            
              

R-help archive
    
          
            

than functions in packages.  Ideas?  comments?
      
            
              

This is OK with me, but I don't want to do it.  I guess it would
search gmane.  MarkMail is also pretty good, as is
http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/ All these are much better than
Namazu for searching the R-help list.
    
          
            

Sorry I didn't make it clear:  I meant something like the 
        
          

gmaneSearcg()
    
      

that Romain posted, not hitting your site.

Best,
Andy
 
  
        
          

Jon
    
          
            

-- 
Romain Francois
Independent R Consultant
+33(0) 6 28 91 30 30
http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr

      
        

-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
Editor: Judgment and Decision Making (http://journal.sjdm.org)

    
      

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