Functional Help for Functions, Objects, and Packages

Enhance R help system by fuzzy search and preview interface, pseudo-postfix operators, and more. The `?.` pseudo-postfix operator and the `?` prefix operator displays documents and contents (source or structure) of objects simultaneously to help understanding the objects. The `?p` pseudo-postfix operator displays package documents, and is shorter than help(package = foo).

felp

felp is a short of functional help, and provides

• fuzzy search and preview of help
  • with fuzzyhelp function or "Fuzzy Search on R Help" RStudio Addin
• Enhanced alternatives of base features
  • ?. pseudo-postfix operator to simultaneously display a help document and a structure of an object
  • ?p pseudo-postfix operator to display document of a package
  • and more

Installation

From CRAN

install.packages("felp")

From GitHub

source("https://install-github.me/atusy/felp")

Features

Fuzzy search and preview of help

with felp::fuzzyhelp() or "Fuzzy Search on R Help" RStudio Addin:

This feature is a Shiny app and is also available online at https://atusy.shinyapps.io/fuzzyhelp/. Note that some features are disabled in the online version (e.g., links between help topics and syntax highlights). Also, the online version has a limit on the number of available packages (tidyverse + felp).

There is also a similar project at https://helpr.atusy.net/ based on WebR. The main differences are appearance and the number of available packages. WebR-based project supports installing any package on CRAN. Once you type {{ packageName }}:: (e.g., dplyr::), WebR installs the package and you can find help topics in the package (e.g., dplyr::mutate).

Enhanced alternatives of base features

library(felp)


# ? operator
?help
?utils::help

# ?. pseudo postfix operator for functions and objects
help?.
utils::help?.

# ?p pseudo postfix operator for packages
utils?p

# felp as an extention of utils::help
felp(help)
felp("help")
felp(utils::help)
felp(help, utils)
felp(package = utils)