Thanks to Bill Venables, Brian Ripley and John Maindonald. The differences between the way R and S use objects means that data.restore is inappropriate for R. Bill advised the use of libraries to deal with objects. Functions and data objects are treated differently, requiring source() and read.table() respectively to create R objects from text files that are produced from dump() and write.table() respectively. I notice that the data() function has some intelligence built into it. I think I like R already, but this information could be put into the FAQ somewhere where the differences between R and S are covered. I could have a suggestion as to where when I've become more familiar with how it's all set up. (Perhaps it already is, but I missed it.) best Patrick -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._