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good source for explaining input and output parameters of R functions

3 messages · Yan Yu, Roger D. Peng, Brian Ripley

Yan Yu
# 
Hello,
   thank you all for answering my previous Qs.. I have a new Q:
   I am wondering is there good source for explaning input and output
parameters of R function?
  In that aspect, I found the help documents in R is not that helpful:)
I am struggling with trying to understand what some of the returned value
means..
for example, for surf.ls() function, the help in R only describes 3
fields(the wierd thing is that those explained 3 fields are identical to
the input) of returned value, and leave a bunch of others(e.g., like "f"
and "wz"which looks pretty interesting, but i had no clue what they are
about..) unexplained.

Is there any good source if I want to understand the input and output of ,
or how to use a particular R function?

Many thanks,
yan
Roger D. Peng
# 
If certain elements returned by a function are not documented, they are
unlikely to be of much use to the user.  In particular, the help page for
surf.ls() says:

Value:

     list with components

    beta: the coefficients 

       x: 

       y: 

       z: and others for internal use only. 
          

So there are other elements returned but they are only used for internal
computations or whatever.  The user will likely not need them or even be
able to use them intelligently.

If you really want to know what all of the returned values are, the best
place to look is the source code.

-roger
_______________________________
UCLA Department of Statistics
http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~rpeng
On Wed, 16 Apr 2003, Yan Yu wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    
7 days later

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Brian Ripley
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
1) surf.ls is not part of R: it is in package spatial.

2) Its help page does explain *4* fields in the value, and says

       `and others for internal use only.'

That means what it says: they are not for use by you, and hence not
documented.

I think you have unrealistic expectations: my uncredited software was
written to support a book (see its DESCRIPTION file), and the *book* does
explain how it works. All you need to do is to buy the book ... or read the
sources, as R is Open Source and that package is GPL-ed.

        
On Wed, 16 Apr 2003, Yan Yu wrote: