The R Project SVN R

\name{help.search}
\alias{help.search}
\alias{print.hsearch}
\title{Search the Help System}
\description{
  Allows for searching the help system for documentation matching a
  given regular expression in the (file) name, alias, title, or keyword
  entries (or any combination thereof).  Topics and titles of the
  matched help entries are nicely displayed.
}
\usage{
help.search(pattern, fields = c("alias", "title"),
            apropos, keyword, whatis, ignore.case = TRUE,
            package = NULL, lib.loc = .lib.loc,
            help.db = getOption("help.db"),
            verbose = getOption("verbose"),
            rebuild = FALSE)
}
\arguments{
  \item{pattern}{a character string containing a regular expression to
    be matched in the specified fields.  If this is given, the arguments
    \code{apropos}, \code{keyword}, and \code{whatis} are ignored.}
  \item{fields}{a character vector specifying the fields of the help
    data bases to be searched.  The entries must be abbreviations of
    \code{"name"}, \code{"alias"}, \code{"title"}, and \code{"keyword"},
    corresponding to the help page's (file) name, the topics it provides
    documentation for, its title, and the keywords it can be classified
    to.}
  \item{apropos}{a character string containing a regular expression to
    be matched in the help page topics and title.}
  \item{keyword}{a character string containing a regular expression to
    be matched in the help page keywords.}
  \item{whatis}{a character string containing a regular expression to be
    matched in the help page topics.}
  \item{ignore.case}{a logical.  If \code{TRUE}, case is ignored during
    matching; if \code{FALSE}, pattern matching is case sensitive.}
  \item{package}{a character vector with the names of packages to
    search through, or \code{NULL} in which case \emph{all} available
    packages in the specified library trees \code{lib.loc} are
    searched.}
  \item{lib.loc}{a character vector describing the location of \R
    library trees to search through.}
  \item{help.db}{a character string giving the file path to a previously
    built and saved help data base, or \code{NULL}.}
  \item{verbose}{logical; if \code{TRUE}, the search process is traced.}
  \item{rebuild}{a logical indicating whether the help data base should
    be rebuilt.}
}
\details{
  Upon installation of a package, the Perl script \file{Rd2contents.pl}
  creates a \file{CONTENTS} data base which contains the information on
  name, aliases, title and keywords (as well as the URL of the HTML
  version of the help file) in Debian Control Format.  This is the data
  base searched by \code{help.search()}.

  The arguments \code{apropos} and \code{whatis} play a role similar to
  the Unix commands with the same names.

  If possible, the help data base is saved to the file \file{help.db} in
  the \file{.R} subdirectory of the user's home directory or the current
  working directory.

  Note that currently, the aliases in the matching help files are not
  displayed.
}
\value{
  The results are returned in an object of class \code{"hsearch"}, which
  has a print method for nicely displaying the results of the query.
  This mechanism is experimental, and may change in future versions of
  R.
}
\seealso{
  \code{\link{help}};
  \code{\link{help.start}} for starting the hypertext (currently HTML)
  version of \R's online documentation, which offers a similar search
  mechanism.

  \code{\link{apropos}} uses regexps and has nice examples.
}
\examples{
help.search("linear models")    # In case you forgot how to fit linear
                                # models
\dontrun{
help.search("print")            # All help pages with topics or title
                                # matching `print'
help.search(apropos = "print")  # The same

help.search(keyword = "hplot")  # All help pages documenting high-level
                                # plots.

## Help pages with documented topics starting with `try'.
help.search("\\\\btry", fields = "alias")
## Do not use `^' or `$' when matching aliases or keywords.
}
}
\keyword{documentation}