R help - Nov 2007 - Packages - a great resource, but hard to find the right one.

Fellow Rers,

Please forgive me if I have posted this to the wrong R list serve.

Over the course of the years that I have used R and participated in this list
server, I have noted a large number of questions and answers that direct people
to specific packages. The multitude of packages is one of the great strengths of
R. Unfortunately there is no (or at least I am not aware of) any single source
that lists all available packages and gives a synopsis of what each package
does. One can install  and load packages one-by-one and look at the help pages
to see what each package does, but this is at best an inefficient and a worst a
very frustrating task. Might there be a way to put together a searchable
database that will allow a user to easily search for a given function or
technique in all contributed packages?

Thanks,
John 

P.S. Many thanks to the writers and maintainers of R packages and the many
people who contribute to the R list server.

John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
Baltimore VA Medical Center GRECC,
University of Maryland School of Medicine Claude D. Pepper OAIC,
University of Maryland Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, and
Baltimore VA Center Stroke of Excellence

University of Maryland School of Medicine
Division of Gerontology
Baltimore VA Medical Center
10 North Greene Street
GRECC (BT/18/GR)
Baltimore, MD 21201-1524

(Phone) 410-605-7119
(Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing)
jsorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu

Confidentiality Statement:
This email message, including any attachments, is for th...{{dropped:6}}

John, what about

http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES.html

Isn't this good enough? You might also take a look at

http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Views/

Gabor

On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 09:24:14AM -0500, John Sorkin
wrote:
> Fellow Rers,
> 
> Please forgive me if I have posted this to the wrong R list serve.
> 
> Over the course of the years that I have used R and participated in
> this list server, I have noted a large number of questions and
> answers that direct people to specific packages. The multitude of
> packages is one of the great strengths of R. Unfortunately there is
> no (or at least I am not aware of) any single source that lists all
> available packages and gives a synopsis of what each package
> does. One can install  and load packages one-by-one and look at the
> help pages to see what each package does, but this is at best an
> inefficient and a worst a very frustrating task. Might there be a
> way to put together a searchable database that will allow a user to
> easily search for a given function or technique in all contributed
> packages?
> 
> Thanks,
> John 
> 
> P.S. Many thanks to the writers and maintainers of R packages and
> the many people who contribute to the R list server. 
> 
> John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
> Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
> Baltimore VA Medical Center GRECC,
> University of Maryland School of Medicine Claude D. Pepper OAIC,
> University of Maryland Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, and
> Baltimore VA Center Stroke of Excellence
> 
> University of Maryland School of Medicine
> Division of Gerontology
> Baltimore VA Medical Center
> 10 North Greene Street
> GRECC (BT/18/GR)
> Baltimore, MD 21201-1524
> 
> (Phone) 410-605-7119
> (Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing)
> jsorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu
> 
> Confidentiality Statement:
> This email message, including any attachments, is for ...{{dropped:11}}

On Wed, 2007-11-21 at 09:24 -0500, John Sorkin wrote:
> Fellow Rers,
> 
> Please forgive me if I have posted this to the wrong R list serve.
> 
> Over the course of the years that I have used R and participated in
> this list server, I have noted a large number of questions and answers
> that direct people to specific packages. The multitude of packages is
> one of the great strengths of R. Unfortunately there is no (or at
> least I am not aware of) any single source that lists all available
> packages and gives a synopsis of what each package does. One can
> install  and load packages one-by-one and look at the help pages to
> see what each package does, but this is at best an inefficient and a
> worst a very frustrating task. Might there be a way to put together a
> searchable database that will allow a user to easily search for a
> given function or technique in all contributed packages?
You can get a synopsis from CRAN if the package description has been
filled in in sufficient detail.

Also, you can try ?RSiteSearch and give it terms for something you are
looking for, or view Jonathan Baron's web site directly:

http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/search.html

which includes CRAN packages, R functions (base and other packages in
distribution) and a few other sources, inc. Bioconductor.

There are also Task Views, which try to pool information for specific
fields:

http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Views/

HTH

G
> 
> Thanks,
> John 
> 
> P.S. Many thanks to the writers and maintainers of R packages and the
> many people who contribute to the R list server.
> 
> John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
> Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
> Baltimore VA Medical Center GRECC,
> University of Maryland School of Medicine Claude D. Pepper OAIC,
> University of Maryland Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, and
> Baltimore VA Center Stroke of Excellence
> 
> University of Maryland School of Medicine
> Division of Gerontology
> Baltimore VA Medical Center
> 10 North Greene Street
> GRECC (BT/18/GR)
> Baltimore, MD 21201-1524
> 
> (Phone) 410-605-7119
> (Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing)
> jsorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu
> 
> Confidentiality Statement:
> This email message, including any attachments, is for th...{{dropped:6}}
> 
> ______________________________________________
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"John Sorkin" <jsorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu> wrote:
>>> The multitude of packages is one of the great strengths of R.
Unfortunately
there is no (or at least I am not aware of) any single source
that lists all available packages and gives a synopsis of what
each package does. One can install  and load packages one-by-one
and look at the help pages to see what each package does, but
this is at best an inefficient and a worst a very frustrating
task. Might there be a way to put together a searchable database
that will allow a user to easily search for a given function or
technique in all contributed packages? <<<

Besides the excellent answers already given, don't overlook
Google.  Searching on "r statistics box-cox transform" turns up
a reference to MASS as the third entry. 

When programming in any language, I now find it quicker to
search for syntax (and other) help by Googling than to pull the
reference manual off the shelf or start up an online help file.


-- 
Mike Prager, NOAA, Beaufort, NC
* Opinions expressed are personal and not represented otherwise.
* Any use of tradenames does not constitute a NOAA endorsement.