"Angel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I thought I was getting to grips with it, until last reply from Prof Brian > Ripley's. At least in my Windows and Linux boxes > ? paste("help") > opens the help for help (!?) > (But Marc is right, when you use emacs (in my Debian) instead of the shell > it gives the error he says, anybody knows why?)
Yes. Emacs/ESS takes stuff of the form ?name and calls help("name") on it. This is a feature, not a bug. best, -tony > For what I think I've learned, when you call ? it first evaluates the topic > and then asks for help on the result, i.e. if you put a function after ? it > will call help on the return value of that function, if it is a for or other > type of flow control it will ask for help for each of the loop results. Is > this the explicit reply to my original answer?? > Thanks, > Angel > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Marc Schwartz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Prof Brian Ripley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: "Ray Brownrigg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 9:58 PM > Subject: Re: [R] ?for > > >> On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 14:27, Prof Brian Ripley wrote: >> > Well ^C or ESC (on Windows GUI) is the answer I would give. >> > >> > On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Ray Brownrigg wrote: >> > >> > > Peter Dalgaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > > > >> > > > Prof Brian Ripley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > > > >> > > > > You have typed a syntactically incomplete statement: this is > explained in >> > > > > ?help. >> > > > > >> > > > > Hint: ?"for" and help("for") work. >> > > > >> > > > [Original question added back in: >> > > > On Sun, 16 Nov 2003, Angel wrote: >> > > > >> > > > > I have always been intrigued by why ?for (or ?if,?while,etc) leave > R >> > > > > wanting for more: >> > > > > > ?for >> > > > > + >> > > > > I know the help for these is in ?Control, but I sometimes make the >> > > > > mistake of typing ?for instead. What is R expecting me to say to > finish >> > > > > the statement? >> > > > ] >> > > > Further hint: ? is an operator, syntactically similar to + and -. > You >> > > > can apply operators to the result of a for loop. Consider for > example >> > > > >> > > > x <- 1; - for (i in 1:10) x <- x * i >> > > > >> > > > (? has special semantics, but that is not noticed at parse time). >> > > > >> > > Unfortunately the original question still hasn't been answered >> > > explicitly, not even in ?help. >> > > Try: >> > > > ?for >> > > + (i in 0) 0 >> > > or: >> > > > ?if >> > > + (T) T >> > > or: >> > > > ?+ >> > > + 0 >> > > >> > > So you have to provide the rest of a syntactically complete statement. >> > > >> > > Just to see if you now understand exactly how ? works, what do you >> > > think: >> > > ? paste("help") >> > > will do? >> > > >> > > Ray Brownrigg >> >> >> R 1.8.1 Beta using gnome-terminal on Fedora Core 1 gives: >> >> > ? paste("help") >> help() for paste is shown in browser /usr/bin/mozilla ... >> Use help( paste , htmlhelp=FALSE) >> or options(htmlhelp = FALSE) >> to revert. >> >> >> However, using ESS with emacs on the same platform gives: >> >> > ? paste("help") >> >> Error in help("paste(", htmlhelp = FALSE) : >> No documentation for 'paste(' in specified packages and libraries: >> you could try 'help.search("paste(")' >> >> >> :-) >> >> Marc >> >> >> >> > > ______________________________________________ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list > https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.analytics.washington.edu/ Biomedical and Health Informatics University of Washington Biostatistics, SCHARP/HVTN Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center UW (Tu/Th/F): 206-616-7630 FAX=206-543-3461 | Voicemail is unreliable FHCRC (M/W): 206-667-7025 FAX=206-667-4812 | use Email CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message and any attachme...{{dropped}} ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help