R devel - Nov 2011 - Error in documentation of "merge"

Hi

there seems to be an error in the documentation of the "merge"
function:

Arguments:

    x, y: data frames, or objects to be coerced to one.

  by, by.x, by.y: specifications of the common columns.  See ‘Details’.

     all: logical; ‘all = L’ is shorthand for ‘all.x = L’ and ‘all.y          
L’.


The "L" should be a T or a TRUE.

Cheers,

Rainer

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology,
UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa

Tel :       +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44
Cell:       +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98
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email:      Rainer@krugs.de

Skype:      RMkrug

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

On Nov 4, 2011, at 13:11 , Rainer M Krug wrote:
> Hi
> 
> there seems to be an error in the documentation of the "merge"
function:
> 
> Arguments:
> 
>    x, y: data frames, or objects to be coerced to one.
> 
>  by, by.x, by.y: specifications of the common columns.  See ?Details?.
> 
>     all: logical; ?all = L? is shorthand for ?all.x = L? and ?all.y >   
L?.
> 
> 
> The "L" should be a T or a TRUE.

I think it's on purpose: L indicates a logical value, TRUE _or_ FALSE.

-pd
-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-devel-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-devel-bounces at
r-project.org]
> On Behalf Of Kasper Daniel Hansen
> Sent: November-04-11 5:26 AM
> To: peter dalgaard
> Cc: r-devel at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Rd] Error in documentation of "merge"
> 
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 8:20 AM, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
wrote:
> >
> > On Nov 4, 2011, at 13:11 , Rainer M Krug wrote:
> >
> >> Hi
> >>
> >> there seems to be an error in the documentation of the
"merge" function:
> >>
> >> Arguments:
> >>
> >> ? ?x, y: data frames, or objects to be coerced to one.
> >>
> >> ?by, by.x, by.y: specifications of the common columns. ?See
?Details?.
> >>
> >> ? ? all: logical; ?all = L? is shorthand for ?all.x = L? and
?all.y > >> ? ? ? ? ?L?.
> >>
> >>
> >> The "L" should be a T or a TRUE.
> >
> >
> > I think it's on purpose: L indicates a logical value, TRUE _or_
FALSE.
> 
> I agree with Peter here.  But it did make me pause the first time I
> read it on the help page years ago and furthermore, I think this is at
> least the second time where this particular formulation has been
> questioned on R-devel.  I am not an index of R help pages, but I
> cannot recall seeing the 'L' as shorthand for logical.  I suggest
> changing the formulation since it seems that several people have been
> confused, for example by writing out 'logical' instead of
'L'.
Seconded, as L does have another use as well now in numeric constants
> 1L
[1] 1



Steven McKinney

> 
> Kasper
> 
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