David, For me, on a windows machine, help(package=) results in a summary window opening in R rather than the detailed help manual that is available through CRAN. Others suggested help.start() which takes me to a CRAN library site but requires me to still click with the mouse to locate the manual for the specific package. My function: manual <- function(library){ LIB <- substitute(library) LIB <- as.character(LIB) browseURL(paste("http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/",LIB,"/",LIB,".pdf", sep = "")) } ...takes you right to the online package. Does R have a similar function already that opens the detailed pdf as the vignette function does. I don't know if the help manuals are downloaded automatically when I download a package but this would be even better as I would not require internet access to retieve the help manual. If r doesn't have a function to do this but does download the help manuals automatically when I download a package I could use shell.exec() with the library file path to do the same thing as the function above. Again this is all provided that R does not already have a function to do this, however, I'm guessing there is because of the existance of the vignette() function Cheers Tyler
> CC: gunter.ber...@gene.com; r-help@r-project.org > From: dwinsem...@comcast.net > To: tyler_rin...@hotmail.com > Subject: Re: [R] Opening package manual from within R > Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:22:38 -0400 > > > Try: > > help(package=tm) > > (You do not need library(). ) > -- > David. > > On Aug 23, 2011, at 6:17 PM, Tyler Rinker wrote: > > > > > I don't think help.start is what I'm looking for but I may be doing > > it wrong. I tried: > > > > library(tm) > > help.start("tm") > > > > This may be inappropriate as it returns: > > > >> library(tm) > >> help.start("tm") > > Error in if (update) make.packages.html(temp = TRUE) : > > argument is not interpretable as logical > > > > Just typing help.start() takes me to a web page but I still have to > > search. > > > > I wrote a function to do what I want that I could place in > > my .First() or a premade package but why bother if there's a way to > > already do this? > > #============================================================= > > # FUNCTION > > #============================================================= > > manual <- function(library){ > > > > LIB <- substitute(library) > > LIB <- as.character(LIB) > > browseURL(paste("http://cran.r-project.org/web/ > > packages/",LIB,"/",LIB,".pdf", sep = "")) > > } > > > > #============================================================= > > # EXAMPLES > > #============================================================= > > manual(plyr) > > manual(tm) > > > > > > > > > > > >> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:10:51 -0700 > >> Subject: Re: [R] Opening package manual from within R > >> From: gunter.ber...@gene.com > >> To: tyler_rin...@hotmail.com > >> CC: r-help@r-project.org > >> > >> After loading the package, does help.start() do what you want? > >> > >> -- Bert > >> > >> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 2:32 PM, Tyler Rinker <tyler_rin...@hotmail.com > >> > wrote: > >>> > >>> Simple question but searching rseek did not yield the results I > >>> wanted. > >>> > >>> Question: Is there a way to open a help manual for a package from > >>> within R. > >>> > >>> For instance I would like to type a function in r for the tm > >>> package and R would open that PDF as seen here: > >>> http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tm/tm.pdf > >>> > >>> -The vignette function exists for vignettes > >>> [vignette("package.name")] so I assume the same exists for manuals. > >>> > >>> -I do not want library(help="package.name") as this is not > >>> detailed enough. > >>> > >>> I am running R 2.14.0 beta on a windows 7 machine > >>> Reproducible code does not seem appropriate in this case. > >>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > >>> > >>> ______________________________________________ > >>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list > >>> 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. > >>> > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > 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. > > David Winsemius, MD > West Hartford, CT > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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.