Re: defined and functions

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

>>"help function" is quite different from "help data" -- I would expect "help
>>fun" to go to "help functions" which lists functions, not "help style func"
>>    
>>
>
>The way gnuplot online help is organized, things like this are bound to
>happen, esp. as doc authors write "?" line carelessly.
>
>The basic problem is that people want to type 'help foo' when the node
>they actually want to see is correctly called 'help commands set foo'.
>
>Requiring not just incomplete, but also *abbreviated* searches to always
>yield the expected result is futile.  That just can't work.  In the case
>of 'help fun', there are at at least three nodes eligible for display,
>given here with their "full" names:
>
>gnuplot expressions functions
>commands show functions
>commands set function style     # deprecated syntax for 'set style function'
>

But even that would be somewhat helpful, i.e., if gnuplot  finds 
multiple entries and none of them are the highest node then display a 
list of node entries.  There are times I remember a certain qualifier 
but not the command that it is under.  The abbreviated help you describe 
above would at least get you in the right area.  A way for enhancing 
what you describe might be to have a "help memory".  That is, display 
all the categories with a number beside, i.e.,

1) gnuplot expressions functions
2) commands show functions
3) commands set function style

and the next time one calls help they could type

gnuplot>  help 2

and the "commands show functions" category will be displayed.

Another enhancement could possibly be a true "search" routine that will 
search through all the help text for the word or words the user specifies.

Dan