R help - Sep 2005 - Language issue

Dear all,

I am running
R : Copyright 2005, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Version 2.1.1  (2005-06-20), ISBN 3-900051-07-0
Under Mac os X, a french version!

I am preparing a package and I got the following issue

I am trying to read dates that are written in 
english and have them recognized by R using 
as.Date function.

I realized strangely that when I type
>  month.abb
  [1] "Jan" "Feb" "Mar" "Apr"
"May" "Jun" "Jul" "Aug" "Sep"
"Oct"
[11] "Nov" "Dec"

I get the abbreviated english version of every month
>  x <- c("1-jan-1960", "2-feb-1960", 
>"31-mar-1960", "30-apr-1960","2-may-1960", 
>"31-jun-1960", "30-jul-1960","2-aug-1960", 
>"31-sep-1960", "30-oct-1960", "30-nov-1960", 
>"30-dec-1960");
>  strptime(x, "%d-%b-%Y")
  [1] "1960-01-01" NA           "1960-03-31" NA
  [5] NA           NA           "1960-07-30" NA
  [9] "1960-10-01" "1960-10-30" "1960-11-30" NA

It is only once I have found through trial an 
error the french abbreviation, that I got a match 
for every month.
>  x <- c("1-jan-1960", "2-f??v-1960", 
>"31-mar-1960", "30-avr-1960","2-mai-1960", 
>"31-jui-1960", "30-jul-1960","2-ao??-1960", 
>"31-sep-1960", "30-oct-1960", "30-nov-1960", 
>"30-d??c-1960");
>  strptime(x, "%d-%b-%Y")
  [1] "1960-01-01" "1960-02-02" "1960-03-31"
"1960-04-30"
  [5] "1960-05-02" "1960-07-01" "1960-07-30"
"1960-08-02"
  [9] "1960-10-01" "1960-10-30" "1960-11-30"
"1960-12-30"

I got simply two questions:

First, why since R was install on a french system 
the month.abb command didn't give me the french 
abbreviations.

Secondly, since I am producing a package, I would 
like to know how can I tell R  to momentairly use 
the english abbreviations instead of the french 
ones...

Thanks a lot


-- 
  S??bastien Durand
Ma??trise en biologie
Universit?? de Montr??al
(514) 343-6864
Universit?? du Qu??bec ?? Montr??al
(514) 987-3000 (1572#)

Sebastien Durand wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I am running
> R : Copyright 2005, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
> Version 2.1.1  (2005-06-20), ISBN 3-900051-07-0
> Under Mac os X, a french version!
> 
> I am preparing a package and I got the following issue
> 
> I am trying to read dates that are written in 
> english and have them recognized by R using 
> as.Date function.
> 
> I realized strangely that when I type
> 
>> month.abb
> 
>   [1] "Jan" "Feb" "Mar" "Apr"
"May" "Jun" "Jul" "Aug" "Sep"
"Oct"
> [11] "Nov" "Dec"
> 
> I get the abbreviated english version of every month
> 
> 
>> x <- c("1-jan-1960", "2-feb-1960", 
>>"31-mar-1960", "30-apr-1960","2-may-1960",
>>"31-jun-1960", "30-jul-1960","2-aug-1960",
>>"31-sep-1960", "30-oct-1960",
"30-nov-1960",
>>"30-dec-1960");
>> strptime(x, "%d-%b-%Y")
> 
>   [1] "1960-01-01" NA           "1960-03-31" NA
>   [5] NA           NA           "1960-07-30" NA
>   [9] "1960-10-01" "1960-10-30" "1960-11-30"
NA
> 
> It is only once I have found through trial an 
> error the french abbreviation, that I got a match 
> for every month.
> 
> 
>> x <- c("1-jan-1960", "2-f??v-1960", 
>>"31-mar-1960", "30-avr-1960","2-mai-1960",
>>"31-jui-1960",
"30-jul-1960","2-ao??-1960",
>>"31-sep-1960", "30-oct-1960",
"30-nov-1960",
>>"30-d??c-1960");
>> strptime(x, "%d-%b-%Y")
> 
>   [1] "1960-01-01" "1960-02-02" "1960-03-31"
"1960-04-30"
>   [5] "1960-05-02" "1960-07-01" "1960-07-30"
"1960-08-02"
>   [9] "1960-10-01" "1960-10-30" "1960-11-30"
"1960-12-30"
> 
> I got simply two questions:
> 
> First, why since R was install on a french system 
> the month.abb command didn't give me the french 
> abbreviations.
It is documented to give English names.  It might be an idea to have a 
variable that gives months in the local language, but I don't know if 
the current translation system supports that.  It would need to have a 
different name than month.abb.
> 
> Secondly, since I am producing a package, I would 
> like to know how can I tell R  to momentairly use 
> the english abbreviations instead of the french 
> ones...
I don't know, but I'd try Sys.setlocale().

Duncan Murdoch