Hi all, I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike 'cat', that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for should work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in the linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function that does this?
Function for displaying arbitrary text as in 'help'.
7 messages · Duncan Murdoch, Jeff Newmiller, Nicolás San Martín
On 02/01/2019 8:47 a.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
Hi all, I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike 'cat', that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for should work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in the linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function that does this?
Help is printed by the function utils:::print.help_files_with_topic which is quite a long function because of all the possible ways to display help. You might be able to adapt it to your own needs, though it won't be trivial. Duncan Murdoch
On 02/01/2019 8:47 a.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
Hi all, I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike 'cat', that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for should work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in the linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function that does this?
The file.show() function will display a text file without all the bells and whistles of the help system; maybe it will be good enough. Duncan Murdoch
You can probably cobble together something, but spitting large chunks of information at users when the program wants to is bad design. It would be better to make a vignette or help file in a package and put the associated code from which you had been planning to spit out that text.
On January 2, 2019 5:47:52 AM PST, "Nicol?s San Mart?n" <smnicolas at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all, I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike 'cat', that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for should work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in the linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function that does this? [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________ R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
Yes, the file.show() is good enough. Thanks El mi?., 2 ene. 2019 a las 13:48, Duncan Murdoch (<murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>) escribi?:
On 02/01/2019 8:47 a.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
Hi all, I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and
displays
it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike 'cat', that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for
should
work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in the linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any
function
that does this?
The file.show() function will display a text file without all the bells and whistles of the help system; maybe it will be good enough. Duncan Murdoch
In this case I am not able to store the text in a file, because it could be modified at any time and I need to display the most recent version (I fetch it from the internet). But I can assume that it is correctly organized for displaying. El mi?., 2 ene. 2019 a las 14:31, Jeff Newmiller (<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>) escribi?:
You can probably cobble together something, but spitting large chunks of information at users when the program wants to is bad design. It would be better to make a vignette or help file in a package and put the associated code from which you had been planning to spit out that text. On January 2, 2019 5:47:52 AM PST, "Nicol?s San Mart?n" < smnicolas at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and
displays
it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike
'cat',
that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for
should
work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in
the
linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any
function
that does this?
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________ R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
-- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
On 02/01/2019 1:36 p.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
In this case I am not able to store the text in a file, because it could be modified at any time and I need to display the most recent version (I fetch it from the internet). But I can assume that it is correctly organized for displaying.
It is possible to have dynamic content in help pages. Web pages (e.g. generated using R-markdown or Shiny) are even more flexible for content, but maybe not meeting your requirement for displaying in an ESS buffer or Linux terminal window. Duncan Murdoch
El mi?., 2 ene. 2019 a las 14:31, Jeff Newmiller (<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>) escribi?:
You can probably cobble together something, but spitting large chunks of information at users when the program wants to is bad design. It would be better to make a vignette or help file in a package and put the associated code from which you had been planning to spit out that text. On January 2, 2019 5:47:52 AM PST, "Nicol?s San Mart?n" < smnicolas at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and
displays
it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike
'cat',
that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for
should
work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in
the
linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any
function
that does this?
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________ R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
-- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________ R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.