Years ago, when I used Splus, I used to do this sort of thing: assign("data", data, frame = 1) This was so that if the object data was used in, say a call to glm, and I wished to do a summary of the glm object, data wasn't otherwise visible. Since I moved to R, the lexical scoping has virtually eliminated the need to do that. However, I've been trying to use the package samm http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/fieldcrops/14715.html It seems to me to be developed for Splus and ported to R (and then mostly only for Windows). There is a binary version for Linux, but it's for R-1.9.x which means it's virtually useless. There's a huge number of functions in the package, and it's not easy to work out what's producing what error.very I suspect the problem isn't to do with using Windows instead of Linux which I'm used to. The only way I can make the required objects visible is to assign them to pos = 1 which means they're debris to be removed after the function finishes, and not a very elegant approach. There's probably something tricky to do with environments I'm not understanding here. If I could replicate the frame = 1 idea, I'd feel less of a klutz. What would be a better approach? TIA -- ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. ___ Patrick Connolly {~._.~} Great minds discuss ideas _( Y )_ Middle minds discuss events (:_~*~_:) Small minds discuss people (_)-(_) ..... Anon ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.