clearNames and unname

"MM" == Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>
    on Thu, 3 Sep 2009 16:14:24 +0200 writes:

"HW" == Hadley Wickham <hadley at rice.edu>
    on Thu, 3 Sep 2009 08:16:27 -0500 writes:

HW> Just noticed these two functions (clearNames is stats and unname in
    HW> base) that do the same thing.

    MM> clearNames looks like an accident.  unname() has existed for
    MM> much longer {and as someone else said}, 
    MM> has been more general, too.

Hmm, the first part in the above may be wrong:
clearNames() has been part of the 'nls' package (before that
was integrated into 'stats'),
and the code of 'nls' may well have been almost as old as the
unname() function :
I see both in  R 0.90.1  (December 15, 1999).

I see only about 5 usages of clearNames() in CRAN packages, and
none in the 300+ Bioconductor "Rpacks"  packages.

Consequently, I'm proposing to deprecate  clearNames() {for
unname()}.

Martin