R help - Nov 2003 - cannot have a function argument named 'break'

Dear list  -

I just discovered to my surprise that I cannot define
a function with an argument named 'break' or 'while'!
'breaks' is okay.  Maybe this is no surprise to the R
developers.

R-1.7.1,  2003-06-16,  i686-pc-linux-gnu.

-  tom blackwell  -  u michigan medical school  -  ann arbor  -

Yup.  R 1.8.0 gives me a syntax error from "if", also: 

 > iff <- function(if)if
Error: syntax error

spencer graves

Thomas W Blackwell wrote:
>Dear list  -
>
>I just discovered to my surprise that I cannot define
>a function with an argument named 'break' or 'while'!
>'breaks' is okay.  Maybe this is no surprise to the R
>developers.
>
>R-1.7.1,  2003-06-16,  i686-pc-linux-gnu.
>
>-  tom blackwell  -  u michigan medical school  -  ann arbor  -
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>  
>

On Sun, 2 Nov 2003, Thomas W Blackwell wrote:
> Dear list  -
>
> I just discovered to my surprise that I cannot define
> a function with an argument named 'break' or 'while'!
> 'breaks' is okay.  Maybe this is no surprise to the R
> developers.
You can't use any of the words that are part of the R language (as opposed
to functions).  The ones I can think of are
   for while repeat
   next break
   if else
   function

	-thomas

Thomas Lumley			Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics
tlumley at u.washington.edu	University of Washington, Seattle