[R] FAQ package, anyone?

baptiste Auguié
2010-08-10T12:31:18Z

Dear list,

Here's a reproducible example that fails,

library(faq)
Error in library(faq) : there is no package called 'faq'

faq("lattice sweave")
Error: could not find function "faq"

As a fun challenge, I propose to remedy this by creating a fortune-like package
dedicated to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) entries. The aim is multifold,

1- Provide a generic template for use in a variety of situations. I imagine that
any package could then define its own FAQ entries and use the faq package to
display them, search, etc.

2- Improve the visibility of the current FAQ: currently directing someone to a
FAQ entry involves some web-browsing, which is not as convenient as it could be
(compare with  fortune()).

3- Once stored in a R-like data format, the FAQ could be straight-forwardly
converted into a wide variety of output formats, including the original html
page (thus made easier to maintain, perhaps).

4- Extend and generalise the fortune package to similar kinds of problems.

In practical terms, I can imagine the following distinct steps,

- check the FAQ license, and whether we can borrow its content

- use some kind of html parsing package (XML?, i forget)

- clean up the data and store it as a data.frame or higher class

- modify / generalise the fortune functions to deal with the different fields
and categories

- write output formatting functions

et voil?!

Comments, contributions, etc. welcome

Regards,

Baptiste