?if
Not sure how to improve this in the short run. Maybe Tiger's Spotlight? But I haven't seen that yet, only read about it. I have copied Tom Short on this email. I believe his reference card is tremendous ( http://www.rpad.org/Rpad/R-refcard.pdf ) and maybe a note or example could be added to the help section. It almost seems to me it would be more consistent to always suggest using the "..." version for getting help. Rob
On Feb 12, 2005, at 7:09 PM, Dr. John R. Vokey wrote:
I am trying to introduce a class of senior undergraduates to the values and advantages of R for their statistical needs. Unfortunately, little (and inconsequential) inconsistencies such as these do little to improve their confidence in the application. It is not that I needed help on the topics, but my students may, and when the two tools they know how to use, ? and apropos(), fail, I get panicked e-mails... I just thought the list would want to know. -John On 12-Feb-05, at 7:47 PM, Rob J Goedman wrote:
Thanks Byron. You're right. In fact ?"if" works fine as well. You do have the November version of R.app. The R.app on Simon's site will give you a faster response if it can't find help on a topic. Rob On Feb 12, 2005, at 5:04 PM, Dr. John R. Vokey wrote:
help(if) (or other control control structures aside from if) gives the same non-result, unless quoted (as noted). A related error occurs with apropos(if)---it returns a syntax error. The version is: This version: Version 1.01 Requires: R 2.0.1 (2004-11-15) Framework Version On 12-Feb-05, at 5:40 PM, Byron Ellis wrote:
Actually there is help for control structures, help("if") works
just fine. The problem is ? is that R's parser treats ? as an
operator with unary and binary forms when, in fact, its not really
an operator. ?if(TRUE) TRUE (any valid IF construct) will also give
the help for 'if'. This is true for all platforms and probably has
something to do with the fact that while "if" is bound directly to
a primitive ( "if"(runif(1) < 0.5,TRUE,FALSE) is equivalent to
if(runif(1) < 0.5) TRUE else FALSE) , the if bareword gets special
handling in the parser.
On Feb 12, 2005, at 4:33 PM, Rob J Goedman wrote:
John, Just to make sure, which configuration are you using? Assuming the GUI (otherwise you would see a "+" instead of the ">" prompt), which version of the R.app are you using? The creation date listed in Finder will do. I think you noticed 2 issues. Right now, there is no ? help for control structures. You have to go to the language reference manual. Secondly, newer versions of R.app (just the GUI part, as released by Simon on http://www.rosuda.org/R/nightly/ ) will tell you if there is no help for the requested topic. Hope this helps, Rob On Feb 12, 2005, at 1:22 PM, Dr. John R. Vokey wrote:
? followed by any of the condition statements (or help() containing the condition statement) does nothing (i.e., the help window fails to open), but the line is parsed in that the prompt `>' is returned. Is this a parsing error in the help function, or (more likely) have I missed some deep R construct? -- John -- John R. Vokey, PhD Professor B.E.R.G. - Behaviour and Evolution Research Group Micro-Cognition Laboratory Department of Psychology & Neuroscience University of Lethbridge Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 3M4 CANADA
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--- Byron Ellis (ellis@stat.harvard.edu) "Oook" -- The Librarian
-- John R. Vokey, PhD Professor B.E.R.G. - Behaviour and Evolution Research Group Micro-Cognition Laboratory Department of Psychology & Neuroscience University of Lethbridge Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 3M4 CANADA