R help - Jan 2019 - Function for displaying arbitrary text as in 'help'.

Hi all,

I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays
it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike
'cat',
that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for should
work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer, in
the
linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function
that does this?

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On 02/01/2019 8:47 a.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays
> it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike
'cat',
> that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for
should
> work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer,
in the
> linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function
> that does this?
Help is printed by the function

  utils:::print.help_files_with_topic

which is quite a long function because of all the possible ways to 
display help.  You might be able to adapt it to your own needs, though 
it won't be trivial.

Duncan Murdoch

On 02/01/2019 8:47 a.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and displays
> it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike
'cat',
> that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for
should
> work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer,
in the
> linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any function
> that does this?
> 
The file.show() function will display a text file without all the bells 
and whistles of the help system; maybe it will be good enough.

Duncan Murdoch

You can probably cobble together something, but spitting large chunks of
information at users when the program wants to is bad design. It would be better
to make a vignette or help file in a package and put the associated code from
which you had been planning to spit out that text.

On January 2, 2019 5:47:52 AM PST, "Nicol?s San Mart?n" <smnicolas
at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and
>displays
>it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does. Unlike
>'cat',
>that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking for
>should
>work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new buffer,
in
>the
>linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any
>function
>that does this?
>
>	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>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.
-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

Yes, the file.show() is good enough. Thanks

El mi?., 2 ene. 2019 a las 13:48, Duncan Murdoch (<murdoch.duncan at
gmail.com>)
escribi?:
> On 02/01/2019 8:47 a.m., Nicol?s San Mart?n wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and
> displays
> > it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does.
Unlike 'cat',
> > that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking
for
> should
> > work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new
buffer, in the
> > linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any
> function
> > that does this?
> >
>
> The file.show() function will display a text file without all the bells
> and whistles of the help system; maybe it will be good enough.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
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In this case I am not able to store the text in a file, because it could be
modified at any time and I need to display the most recent version (I fetch
it from the internet). But I can assume that it is correctly organized for
displaying.

El mi?., 2 ene. 2019 a las 14:31, Jeff Newmiller (<jdnewmil at
dcn.davis.ca.us>)
escribi?:
> You can probably cobble together something, but spitting large chunks of
> information at users when the program wants to is bad design. It would be
> better to make a vignette or help file in a package and put the associated
> code from which you had been planning to spit out that text.
>
> On January 2, 2019 5:47:52 AM PST, "Nicol?s San Mart?n" <
> smnicolas at gmail.com> wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I am looking for a function that receives some text (any text) and
> >displays
> >it to the user in the same way as the 'help' function does.
Unlike
> >'cat',
> >that outputs the text in the current window, the one I'm looking
for
> >should
> >work as 'help' that, for example, in emacs ess opens a new
buffer, in
> >the
> >linux terminar displays it as the more command, etc. Is there any
> >function
> >that does this?
> >
> >       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> >______________________________________________
> >R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> >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.
>
> --
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>
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