From p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk  Tue Jun  3 20:10:28 2003
From: p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard BSA)
Date: Tue Jun  3 21:10:32 2003
Subject: [Rd] ?if (PR#3179)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0306031838530.8601-100000@gannet.stats>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0306031838530.8601-100000@gannet.stats>
Message-ID: <x2isrnj7gn.fsf@biostat.ku.dk>

Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> What makes you think that is a bug?
> 
> ?"if" and help("if") work
> 
> `An Introduction to R' says
> 
> For a feature specified by special characters, the argument must be
> enclosed in double or single quotes, making it a ``character string'':

To be precise, we should probably insert "or a reserved word"
in that sentence. 

The point is that parsing occurs prior to the logic that runs help on
the (deparsed) argument, so it's technically no different from "-if"
or "!for" which are also syntactically invalid. The question mark is
just another operator at this stage.


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907


[Rd] ?if (PR#3179)
Peter Dalgaard BSA