plm: plm.data vs pdata.frame

Hello,

I am trying to use the plm package for panel econometrics. I am just
trying to get started and load my data. It seems from most of the
sample documentation that I need to use the pdata.frame function to
get my data loaded. However, even after installing the "plm" package,
my R installation cannot find the function. I am trying to follow the
example in plmEN.pdf ( cran.mirroring.de/doc/vignettes/plm/plmEN.pdf )

library(plm)

Loading required package: kinship
Loading required package: survival
Loading required package: splines
Loading required package: nlme
Loading required package: lattice
[1] "kinship is loaded"
Loading required package: Formula
Loading required package: MASS
Loading required package: sandwich
Loading required package: zoo

Attaching package: 'zoo'


	The following object(s) are masked from package:base :

	 as.Date.numeric

library(Ecdat)
data(Hedonic)
pdata.frame(Hedonic, "townid")

Error: could not find function "pdata.frame"

From here, I decided to try using plm.data, which worked

h2 <- plm.data(Hedonic, "townid")

However, doing a summary of the h2 object, it was not as in the
plmEN.pdf example, meaning it did not show any information about the
panel structure of the object.

I would appreciate some help as to getting my data into a proper
pdata.frame. Thank you,

-stephen barr
==========================================
Stephen J. Barr
University of Washington
WEB: www.econsteve.com