Question: write an R script with help information available to the user
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Chee Chen <chen418 at purdue.edu> wrote:
Dear All,
I would like to ask a question on how to incorporate into an R script help information for the user. I vaguely recall that I saw some instructions on an R manual, but am not able to figure them out. Hereunder is the basic setting:
1. I finished writing an R script, my_script.r, that is a function (the function is named "my_func") for a statistical procedure. This means that the user only needs to: source("directory_of_script\my_script.r"), then run, my_func(arg1, arg2, ..), to execute the procedure.
2. I would like to add some lines into "my_script.r", so that a user can get information on this file and function by using "?my_func"
You may wish to create a package from your script; however, if you
would prefer not then a workaround would be to redefine the ? function
in your script to provide some help. For example if you had this line
in your script:
`?` <- function(...) if (match.call()[[2]] == "mytopic")
cat("whatever\n") else help(...)
then this would work:
?mytopic
whatever
?dim
where the last line launches normal help. If you wish to display a file rather than cat strings to the console then use: file.show -- Statistics & Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com