This produces a response containing this excerpt:mvrnorm(MASS) Simulate from a Multivariate Normal
Distribution
You can see that the functionmvrnorm()will do the job, and it is in the pack-
ageMASS.
There is also a question-mark shortcut tohelp.search():
??"multivariate normal"
1.7.4 Help for Other Topics...........................................
R’s internal help files include more than just pages for specific functions.
For example, the previous section mentioned that the functionmvrnorm()is
in the packageMASS. You can get information about the function by enter-
ing this:
?mvrnorm
And you can also learn about the entire package by typing this:
help(package=MASS)
Help is available for general topics, too. For instance, if you’re inter-
ested in learning about files, type the following:
?files
This gives you information about a number of file-manipulation func-
tions, such asfile.create().
Here are some other topics:
Arithmetic
Comparison
Control
Dates
Extract
Math
Memory
NA
NULL
NumericaConstants
Paren
Quotes
Startup
Syntax
Getting Started 23