R devel - Apr 2018 - In base R: argument `list` does not accept lists

I found a few occurrences of "\uxxx" which should probably have
one more "x". A patch follows:

Index: doc/manual/R-ints.texi
==================================================================---
doc/manual/R-ints.texi	(revision 74580)
+++ doc/manual/R-ints.texi	(working copy)
@@ -1277,11 +1277,11 @@
 we have to a universal format.  For those that do not (for example those
 lacking a powerful enough @code{iconv}), it is likely that they work in
 Latin-1, the old @R{} assumption. Then the parser can return a
-UTF-8-encoded string if it encounters a @samp{\uxxx} escape for a
+UTF-8-encoded string if it encounters a @samp{\uxxxx} escape for a
 Unicode point that cannot be represented in the current charset.  (This
 needs MBCS support, and was only enabled at footnote{See define
 @code{USE_UTF8_IF_POSSIBLE} in file @file{src/main/gram.c}.} on
-Windows.)  This is enabled for all platforms, and a @samp{\uxxx} or
+Windows.)  This is enabled for all platforms, and a @samp{\uxxxx} or
 @samp{\Uxxxxxxxx} escape ensures that the parsed string will be marked
 as UTF-8.
 
Index: src/library/base/man/iconv.Rd
==================================================================---
src/library/base/man/iconv.Rd	(revision 74580)
+++ src/library/base/man/iconv.Rd	(working copy)
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@
   
   Some of the implementations have interesting extra encodings: for
   example GNU \samp{libiconv} allows \code{to = "C99"} to use
-  \code{\\uxxx} escapes for non-ASCII characters.
+  \code{\\uxxxx} escapes for non-ASCII characters.
 }
 
 \section{Byte Order Marks}{

The function `base::rm` has an argument that is named `list`.  However, if a
list is passed as `list` to `rm` (e.g.: `rm(list = list("x",
"y"))`), an error is raised: "invalid first argument".

Agreed, the documentation says that `list` should be "a character vector
naming objects to be removed."  Still, wouldn't it make sense to allow
a list of characters as an argument?

The other alternative to make things consistent would be to rename the argument,
but that would break compatibility, of course.

Best
Johannes

On 13/04/2018 7:21 AM, Johannes Rauh wrote:
> The function `base::rm` has an argument that is named `list`.  However, if
a list is passed as `list` to `rm` (e.g.: `rm(list = list("x",
"y"))`), an error is raised: "invalid first argument".
> 
> Agreed, the documentation says that `list` should be "a character
vector naming objects to be removed."  Still, wouldn't it make sense to
allow a list of characters as an argument?
> 
> The other alternative to make things consistent would be to rename the
argument, but that would break compatibility, of course.
There are other functions (data(), save(), remove(), package.skeleton(), 
etc.) that use the convention that "list" names a character vector
full
of names, others where variations on that name ("affinity.list", 
"pkglist") have the same purpose, and still others where
"list" takes a
different kind of object entirely (untar(), unzip()).  I couldn't find 
any examples where an argument named "list" takes a list as a value.

There really isn't any substitute for reading the documentation for any 
function you choose to use.

Duncan Murdoch