write.csv (PR#7992)

This may not be inconsistent with the documentation but it is 
inconsistent with good practice.  Wrappers should, in general,
set the default values, as the poster rightly indicated, and not the 
values themselves.  Its not a coincidence that multiple people 
have mentioned this.

On 7/7/05, maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:

This topic already came up about a week ago on R-devel
 Subject: write.csv suggestion

 [ too bad that "R-devel" is not available via  RSiteSearch() ...
   {I could send you the back archives, Jon, if you are interested} ]

There, Brian Ripley, explained why this is not a bug, since
it works as documented, "CSV" files are well defined entities
and you can always use write.table() if you want to be flexible.

Brian also changed things for R-devel {to be R 2.2.x} such that
its help page, see
  http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/write.table.html ,
now  has

Usage:
       . . . .

     write.csv(...)
     write.csv2(...)

. . . .


Arguments:
       . . . .

     ...: arguments to 'write.table': 'col.names', 'sep', 'dec' and
          'qmethod' cannot be altered.

which should make the intention of the write.csv*() wrapper
functions a bit more clear.

Regards,
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich

"arnima" == arnima  <arnima at u.washington.edu>
    on Thu,  7 Jul 2005 05:21:43 +0200 (CEST) writes:

   arnima> The write.csv() function is currently implemented as
   arnima> function (..., col.names=NA, sep=",", qmethod="double")
   arnima> {
   arnima> write.table(..., col.names=NA, sep=",", qmethod="double")
   arnima> }

   arnima> Surely, it should be

   arnima> function (..., col.names=NA, sep=",", qmethod="double")
   arnima> {
   arnima> write.table(..., col.names=col.names, sep=sep, qmethod=qmethod)
   arnima> }

   arnima> so that the user arguments serve a purpose. This notion is reflected in
   arnima> the implementation of read.csv(), for example, where sep=sep, quote=quote,
   arnima> etc.


   arnima> Arni

   arnima> R 2.1.1pat 2005-07-04 on WinXP