accessing source code in R packages

From: "ronggui.wong" <042045003 at fudan.edu.cn>
Reply-To: 042045003 at fudan.edu.cn
To: "r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch" <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Subject: Re: [R] accessing source code in R packages
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 10:03:45 +0800

R is open source.  You can download the source code from CRAN.

If you mean at the R prompt, usually you see the code for a function by
typing the name of the function at the R prompt, without parentheses.
`Usually' because some methods are delibrately `hidden' from users, and
should only be accessed through their generics.  There are still ways to 

get

around that.

sometimes,the getS3method is helpfull.

library(MASS)
princomp.default

Error: object "princomp.default" not found

getS3method("princomp","default")

function (x, cor = FALSE, scores = TRUE, covmat = NULL, subset = rep(TRUE,
    nrow(as.matrix(x))), ...)
{
----snip----

However, the code you get at the R prompt is not the _source_, as it does
not contain any original comments.  You need to go to the source I refer 

to

above.

Andy

From: ritesh at pdx.edu

Hi,

I am new the R world and would like to know how can I access
source codes of
standard functions in R?

Thanks,
Ritesh.