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Error in documentation of "merge"
4 messages · Rainer M Krug, Peter Dalgaard, Kasper Daniel Hansen
On Nov 4, 2011, at 13:11 , Rainer M Krug wrote:
Hi
there seems to be an error in the documentation of the "merge" function:
Arguments:
x, y: data frames, or objects to be coerced to one.
by, by.x, by.y: specifications of the common columns. See ?Details?.
all: logical; ?all = L? is shorthand for ?all.x = L? and ?all.y =
L?.
The "L" should be a T or a TRUE.
I think it's on purpose: L indicates a logical value, TRUE _or_ FALSE. -pd
Peter Dalgaard, Professor Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Phone: (+45)38153501 Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
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On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 8:20 AM, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote:
On Nov 4, 2011, at 13:11 , Rainer M Krug wrote:
Hi there seems to be an error in the documentation of the "merge" function: Arguments: ? ?x, y: data frames, or objects to be coerced to one. ?by, by.x, by.y: specifications of the common columns. ?See ?Details?. ? ? all: logical; ?all = L? is shorthand for ?all.x = L? and ?all.y = ? ? ? ? ?L?. The "L" should be a T or a TRUE.
I think it's on purpose: L indicates a logical value, TRUE _or_ FALSE.
I agree with Peter here. But it did make me pause the first time I read it on the help page years ago and furthermore, I think this is at least the second time where this particular formulation has been questioned on R-devel. I am not an index of R help pages, but I cannot recall seeing the 'L' as shorthand for logical. I suggest changing the formulation since it seems that several people have been confused, for example by writing out 'logical' instead of 'L'. Kasper