On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 1:50 AM, Bert Gunter <gunter.ber...@gene.com> wrote: > A related approach which, if memory serves, was originally in S eons > ago, is to define a "doc" attribute of any function (or object, for > that matter) that you wish to document that contains text for > documentation and a doc() function of the form: > > doc <- function(obj) cat(attr(obj,"doc")) > > used as: > >> f- function(x) NULL >> attr(f,"doc") <- "Some text\n\n" >> doc(f) >> doc(f) > Some text > > This is pretty primitive, but I suppose you could instead have the > attribute point to something like an HTML file and the doc() function > open it in a web browser, which is basically what R's built-in package > document system does anyway. Except you wouldn't have to build a > package and don't have to learn or follow R's procedures. Which means > you don't get R's standardization and organization and no one but a > private bunch of users will be able to use your function. But maybe > that's sufficient for your needs. >
To further build on this try the above idea using the comment function: > f <- function() NULL > comment(f) <- "Help goes here" > > comment(f) [1] "Help goes here" or combine it with the redefinition of ? like like this: `?` <- function(...) if (!is.null(doc <- comment(get(match.call()[[2]])))) cat(doc, "\n") else help(...) ?f # displays: Help goes here ?dim # normal help -- Statistics & Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com ______________________________________________ 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.