R help - Aug 2004 - Suggestion for posting guide

I have a suggestion for the posting guide.  One problem with some posts is that
they do not provide an example that can be reproduced.   I think that many
people just do not know how to easily specify some data and some technical
assistance should be provided in the posting guide.  If the problem
depends on specific data they should be made aware, in the posting guide, of:

   dput(x) 

since that outputs object x as R code which can then be easily copied from the
post and pasted into a session.  If its not dependent on particular data they
can generate patterned or random data IF THEY KNOW HOW but many might find it
easier to just use one of the included datasets so some guidance should be
provided on the contents of a few of them, e.g.

R comes with built in data sets.  data() will list them, data(iris) will
attach data set iris and ?iris, str(iris), summary(iris), head(iris)
and dput(iris) will give more information on iris (after attaching it).
The following are a few of the datasets that come with R:

   iris - data frame with 4 numeric columns and one 3 level factor
   nhtemp - a ts class time series 
   faithful - data frame with two numeric columns
   warpbreaks - data with a numeric column, a 2-level factor & a 3-level
factor

Also letters, LETTERS, month.abb and month.name are built in character vectors
that do not require a data statement to access.

Technical point:

Gabor Grothendieck wrote

	``data(iris) will attach data set iris''

This is not true --- data(iris) put ``iris'' into the Global
environment; if one wants it attached, one has to do the follow up by
attach(iris).

			cheers,

				Rolf Turner
				rolf at math.unb.ca

When I originally compiled the posting guide many people felt that it 
should be kept as concise as possible, so that its length would not 
discourage people from reading it.  (It probably ended up too long 
anyway.)  So I wouldn't really recommend adding a section of this length 
too it.

That said, a question posted with a good example that can be cut and pasted 
directly into R is far easier to respond to, so it does seem like a good 
idea to help people create such things.  If someone (Gabor?) wanted to 
create a page on how to provide good examples in posts, the people who 
control what gets put on the R-project site might be willing to put it up 
there, and a link to it from the posting guide would seem like a good idea.

Tony Plate

At Thursday 07:17 AM 8/19/2004, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>I have a suggestion for the posting guide.  One problem with some posts is 
>that
>they do not provide an example that can be reproduced.   I think that many
>people just do not know how to easily specify some data and some technical
>assistance should be provided in the posting guide.  If the problem
>depends on specific data they should be made aware, in the posting guide,
of:
>
>    dput(x)
>
>since that outputs object x as R code which can then be easily copied from
the
>post and pasted into a session.  If its not dependent on particular data
they
>can generate patterned or random data IF THEY KNOW HOW but many might find
it
>easier to just use one of the included datasets so some guidance should be
>provided on the contents of a few of them, e.g.
>
>R comes with built in data sets.  data() will list them, data(iris) will
>attach data set iris and ?iris, str(iris), summary(iris), head(iris)
>and dput(iris) will give more information on iris (after attaching it).
>The following are a few of the datasets that come with R:
>
>    iris - data frame with 4 numeric columns and one 3 level factor
>    nhtemp - a ts class time series
>    faithful - data frame with two numeric columns
>    warpbreaks - data with a numeric column, a 2-level factor & a
3-level
> factor
>
>Also letters, LETTERS, month.abb and month.name are built in character
vectors
>that do not require a data statement to access.
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>PLEASE do read the posting guide!
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html