Package 'searcher'

Description

Provides search interfaces to look up terms on major search engines including 'Google', 'Bing', 'DuckDuckGo', 'Startpage', 'Ecosia', 'Brave', 'Kagi', 'rseek', social platforms like 'X' (formerly Twitter), 'BlueSky', 'Mastodon', programming communities such as 'StackOverflow', 'Posit Community', and code repositories including 'GitHub', 'grep.app', and 'BitBucket'. Additionally, provides direct integration with AI assistants through specialized query functions for 'ChatGPT', 'Claude AI', 'Perplexity AI', 'Mistral AI', 'Microsoft Copilot', and 'Meta AI', complete with an AI prompt management system for R-optimized interactions. Upon searching or querying, a browser window will open with the search results or AI interface pre-populated with the specified query.

Package Customizations

searcher accesses a set of default values stored in options() on each call to keep the function signatures small. By default, these options are given as:

• searcher.launch_delay: Amount of time to remain in R before opening a browser window. Default is 0.5 seconds.

• searcher.use_rstudio_viewer: Display search results in the RStudio viewer pane instead of a web browser. Default is FALSE.

• searcher.default_keyword: Suffix keyword to generate accurate results between either "base" or "tidyverse". Default is "base".

• Other options are used to set the default prompts for AI services

  • searcher.chatgpt_prompt: Default prompt for OpenAI's ChatGPT.

  • searcher.claude_prompt: Default prompt for Anthropic's Claude AI.

  • searcher.perplexity_prompt: Default prompt for Perplexity AI.

  • searcher.mistral_prompt: Default prompt for Mistral AI's Le Chat.

  • searcher.bing_copilot_prompt: Default prompt for Microsoft's (Bing) Copilot.

  • searcher.grok_prompt: Default prompt for xAI's Grok AI.

  • searcher.meta_ai_prompt: Default prompt for Meta's AI.

Author(s)

Maintainer: James Balamuta [email protected] (ORCID)

Other contributors:

• Alex Rossell Hayes [email protected] (ORCID) [contributor]

See Also

Useful links:

• https://github.com/coatless-rpkg/searcher

• https://r-pkg.thecoatlessprofessor.com/searcher/

• Report bugs at https://github.com/coatless-rpkg/searcher/issues

Description

Sets a system-level prompt to be used with all AI search functions. When called with no arguments, returns the currently active prompt.

Usage

ai_prompt(prompt_name = NULL)

Arguments

Value

Invisibly returns the active prompt text. If called without arguments, returns the active prompt visibly.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Set a predefined prompt
ai_prompt("debugging")

# Set a custom prompt
ai_prompt("Explain this R error in simple terms with examples:")

# Check current active prompt
ai_prompt()

# Clear the system prompt
ai_prompt(NULL)

## End(Not run)

Description

Returns the currently active system-level prompt, if any.

Usage

ai_prompt_active()

Value

The active prompt text, or NULL if no system prompt is set.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Check current active prompt
ai_prompt_active()

## End(Not run)

Description

Clears the currently active system-level prompt.

Usage

ai_prompt_clear()

Value

Invisibly returns NULL.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Clear the system prompt
ai_prompt_clear()

## End(Not run)

Description

Lists all available prompts in the prompt library.

Usage

ai_prompt_list()

Value

A named list of available prompts.

Examples

## Not run: 
# List all available prompts
ai_prompt_list()

## End(Not run)

Description

A set of functions to manage and apply prompts for AI search services. These functions allow you to create, maintain, and use a library of effective prompts for different AI assistants and scenarios.

Details

The prompt management system works with multiple levels of prompts:

1. System-level prompt: Set with ai_prompt(), applies across all AI services

2. Service-specific prompts: Set with options() or in function calls

3. Default prompts: Built-in prompts that ship with the package

When a search is performed, prompts are applied in this order, with the query at the end.

Description

Adds a new prompt to the prompt library.

Usage

ai_prompt_register(name, prompt_text, overwrite = FALSE)

Arguments

Value

Invisibly returns the updated prompt library.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Register a new prompt
ai_prompt_register(
  "tidyverse",
  paste("As a tidyverse expert, explain how to solve this problem using",
        "dplyr, tidyr, and other tidyverse packages:"
 )
)

## End(Not run)

Description

Removes a prompt from the prompt library.

Usage

ai_prompt_remove(name)

Arguments

Value

Invisibly returns the updated prompt library.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Remove a prompt
ai_prompt_remove("tidyverse")

## End(Not run)

Description

Searches Microsoft Bing Copilot, which combines web search results with AI-generated responses. This makes it useful for queries that benefit from current web information.

Usage

ask_bing_copilot(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

ask_copilot(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_chatgpt(), ask_claude(), ask_grok(), ask_meta_ai(), ask_mistral(), ask_perplexity()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_bing_copilot("Latest R package for geospatial analysis")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_bing_copilot("Write a function to calculate the median",
                 prompt = "Show multiple approaches:")

Description

Opens a browser with OpenAI's ChatGPT interface and your query. This function allows you to ask questions, get code help, or search for information using ChatGPT.

Usage

ask_chatgpt(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_bing_copilot(), ask_claude(), ask_grok(), ask_meta_ai(), ask_mistral(), ask_perplexity()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_chatgpt("How to join two dataframes in R?")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_chatgpt("Error: object 'mtcrs' not found",
            prompt = "Debug this error step by step:")

# Searching the last error
## Not run: 
tryCatch(
  median("not a number"),
  error = function(e) ask_chatgpt()
)

## End(Not run)

Description

Opens Anthropic's Claude AI assistant with your query. Claude can provide thorough answers to complex questions and offers excellent code explanations.

Usage

ask_claude(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_bing_copilot(), ask_chatgpt(), ask_grok(), ask_meta_ai(), ask_mistral(), ask_perplexity()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_claude("Explain what purrr::map_df does")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_claude("Compare tidyr::pivot_wider vs tidyr::spread",
           prompt = "Provide examples of when to use each:")

Description

Searches xAI's Grok, which provides AI assistance focused on maximize truth and objectivity.

Usage

ask_grok(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

ask_xai(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_bing_copilot(), ask_chatgpt(), ask_claude(), ask_meta_ai(), ask_mistral(), ask_perplexity()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_grok("What are the best practices for R package development?")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_grok("How to optimize this R code for performance?",
                 prompt = "Focus on efficiency and best practices:")

Description

Searches Meta AI, which provides general-purpose AI assistance with a focus on conversational responses.

Usage

ask_meta_ai(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_bing_copilot(), ask_chatgpt(), ask_claude(), ask_grok(), ask_mistral(), ask_perplexity()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_meta_ai("What are the best R packages for visualization?")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_meta_ai("How to create a heatmap in R",
            prompt = "Compare ggplot2 and base R approaches:")

Description

Launches Mistral AI with your query. Mistral is known for its strong reasoning capabilities and efficiency.

Usage

ask_mistral(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

ask_le_chat(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_bing_copilot(), ask_chatgpt(), ask_claude(), ask_grok(), ask_meta_ai(), ask_perplexity()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_mistral("How to handle missing data in R?")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_mistral("Fix this code: ggplot(mtcars, aes(x=mpg, y=hp) + geom_point()",
            prompt = "Explain the error and fix it:")

Description

Searches with Perplexity AI, which provides answers with citations to sources. This makes it particularly useful for research-oriented queries.

Usage

ask_perplexity(query = geterrmessage(), prompt = NULL)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other AI assistants: ask_bing_copilot(), ask_chatgpt(), ask_claude(), ask_grok(), ask_meta_ai(), ask_mistral()

Examples

# Basic query
ask_perplexity("Compare dplyr vs data.table")

# Using a custom prompt
ask_perplexity("Best packages for time series in R",
               prompt = "Provide citations and compare performance:")

Description

The search_bing() function searches Bing using: ⁠https://www.bing.com/search?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_bing(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Bing
search_bing("Microsoft R")

Description

The search_bitbucket() and search_bb() functions both search BitBucket using: ⁠https://bitbucket.org/search?q=lang\%3Ar+<query>⁠

Usage

search_bitbucket(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_bb(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

For additional details regarding BitBucket's search interface please see: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/code-search-in-bitbucket-873876782.html

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other code repositories: search_github(), search_grep()

Examples

# Search BitBucket for assertions
search_bitbucket("assertions")

# Search all languages on BitBucket for assertions
search_bitbucket("assertions", rlang = FALSE)

Description

The search_bluesky() functions search BlueSky using: ⁠https://bsky.app/search?q=%23rstats+<query>⁠

Usage

search_bluesky(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other community sites: search_mastodon(), search_posit_community(), search_stackoverflow(), search_twitter()

Examples

# Search BlueSky
search_bluesky("searcher")

Description

The search_brave() function searches Brave using: ⁠https://search.brave.com/search?q=<query>&source=web⁠

Usage

search_brave(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Brave
search_brave("webR")

Description

The search_duckduckgo() and search_ddg() functions both search DuckDuckGo using: ⁠https://duckduckgo.com/?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_duckduckgo(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_ddg(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search DuckDuckGo
search_duckduckgo("R language")

Description

The search_ecosia() function searches Ecosia using: ⁠https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_ecosia(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

For additional details regarding Ecosia's search interface please see: https://support.ecosia.org/article/657-installing-ecosia-on-your-desktop-device

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Ecosia
search_ecosia("climate change R analysis")

Description

The search_github() and search_gh() functions both search GitHub using: ⁠https://github.com/search?q=<query>+language\%3Ar+type\%3Aissue&type=Issues⁠

Usage

search_github(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_gh(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

For additional details regarding GitHub's search interface please see: https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-cloud@latest/search-github/getting-started-with-searching-on-github/about-searching-on-github and https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/searching-on-github/searching-code/

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other code repositories: search_bitbucket(), search_grep()

Examples

# Search GitHub Issues for bivariate normal in the language:r
search_github("bivariate normal")

# Search all languages on GitHub Issues for bivariate normal
search_github("bivariate normal", rlang = FALSE)

Description

The search_google function searches Google using: ⁠https://www.google.com/search?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_google(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Google
search_google("r-project")

## Not run: 
# On error, automatically search the message on google
options(error = searcher("google"))
options(error = search_google)

## End(Not run)

Description

The search_grep() function searches all public code on GitHub using grep.app by querying: ⁠https://grep.app/search?q=<query-here>&filter[lang][0]=R⁠

Usage

search_grep(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other code repositories: search_bitbucket(), search_github()

Examples

# Search R code on GitHub for numerical optimization
search_grep("optim")

# Search all code on GitHub for numerical optimization
search_grep("optim", rlang = FALSE)

Description

The search_kagi() function searches Kagi using: ⁠https://kagi.com/search?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_kagi(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

This is a paid search engine, and you will need to sign up for an account to use it.

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_qwant(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Kagi
search_kagi("advanced R programming")

Description

The search_mastodon() functions search Mastodon using: ⁠https://mastodon.social/search?q=%23rstats+<query>⁠

Usage

search_mastodon(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other community sites: search_bluesky(), search_posit_community(), search_stackoverflow(), search_twitter()

Examples

# Search Mastodon
search_mastodon("searcher")

Description

The search_posit_community() and search_posit() functions both search Posit Community using: ⁠https://forum.posit.co/search?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_posit_community(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_posit(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

For additional details regarding Posit Community's search interface please see the Discourse API documentation: https://docs.discourse.org/#tag/Search

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other community sites: search_bluesky(), search_mastodon(), search_stackoverflow(), search_twitter()

Examples

# Search Posit Community
search_posit_community("RStudio IDE")

Description

The search_qwant() function searches Qwant using: ⁠https://www.qwant.com/?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_qwant(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_rseek(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Qwant
search_qwant("Quarto")

Description

The search_rseek() function searches Rseek using: ⁠https://rseek.org/?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_rseek(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_startpage()

Examples

# Search Rseek
search_rseek("searcher")

Description

Creates an appropriate query string for a search engine and then opens up the resulting page in a web browser.

Usage

search_site(
  query,
  site = c("google", "bing", "duckduckgo", "ddg", "startpage", "sp", "qwant", "rseek",
    "brave", "kagi", "posit community", "posit", "twitter", "x", "bluesky", "mastodon",
    "stackoverflow", "so", "github", "gh", "grep", "bitbucket", "bb", "chatgpt",
    "claude", "perplexity", "mistral", "bing copilot", "copilot", "grok", "meta ai",
    "meta"),
  rlang = TRUE,
  prompt = NULL
)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

Examples

# Search in a generic way
search_site("r-project", "google")

Description

The search_stackoverflow() and search_so() functions both search StackOverflow using: ⁠https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=\%5Br\%5D+<query>⁠

Usage

search_stackoverflow(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_so(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

For additional details regarding StackOverflow's search interface please see:

https://stackoverflow.com/help/searching

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other community sites: search_bluesky(), search_mastodon(), search_posit_community(), search_twitter()

Examples

# Search StackOverflow for Convolutions in the r tag
search_stackoverflow("convolutions")

# Search all languages on StackOverflow for convolutions
search_stackoverflow("convolutions", rlang = FALSE)

Description

The search_startpage() function searches startpage using: ⁠https://startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=<query>⁠

Usage

search_startpage(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_sp(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other search engines: search_bing(), search_brave(), search_duckduckgo(), search_ecosia(), search_google(), search_kagi(), search_qwant(), search_rseek()

Examples

# Search startpage
search_startpage("VS Code")

Description

The search_twitter() functions search Twitter using: ⁠https://twitter.com/search?q=<query>⁠

Usage

search_twitter(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

search_x(query = geterrmessage(), rlang = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

For additional details regarding Twitter's search interface please see: https://help.x.com/en/using-x/x-advanced-search

Value

The generated search URL or an empty string.

See Also

Other community sites: search_bluesky(), search_mastodon(), search_posit_community(), search_stackoverflow()

Examples

# Search Twitter
search_twitter("searcher")

Description

Constructs a function object that will search the last R error message on search portals by opening a browser.

Usage

searcher(site, keyword = getOption("searcher.default_keyword"))

Arguments

Details

This function acts as a closure. Thus, you will receive a function back when only specifying the site parameter. To call the function, add a second set of parentheses.

Generic Error Search

The searcher function grabs the last error message and tries to search it. This function will ensure that R language is the primary search context.

Examples

### Manually
searcher("google")()

## Not run: 
### Automatically
# On error, automatically search the message on google
options(error = searcher("google"))

## End(Not run)

Description

Functions listed below are no longer included in the searcher package

Details

• search_ixquick(): The function binding was removed as the search engine name changed to "Startpage". Please use search_startpage().

• search_rstudio_community(): The function binding was removed as the company name changed to "Posit". Please use search_posit_community().

• search_rscom(): The function binding was removed as the company name changed to "Posit". Please use search_posit().