From J.C.Rougier@durham.ac.uk  Fri Nov 10 15:33:51 2000
From: J.C.Rougier@durham.ac.uk (Jonathan Rougier)
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 15:33:51 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: [Rd] Modification to cov and cor
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.20.0011101506480.8632-100000@laplace>

Can I suggest that in cov and cor the lines

    if (is.data.frame(x)) 
        x <- as.matrix(x)
    if (is.data.frame(y)) 
        y <- as.matrix(y)

be replaced by 

    if (is.data.frame(x)) 
        x <- data.matrix(x) # coerce logical and factors
    if (is.data.frame(y)) 
        y <- data.matrix(y) # likewise

This would allow things like

> data(iris)
> cor(iris)

which seems like a reasonable thing to do (certainly to my students!).  It
would also give a more informative error message:

> iris$Species <- as.character(iris$Species)
> cor(iris) # modified function
Error in data.matrix(x) : non-numeric data type in frame

as opposed to

> cor(iris) # original function
Error in cor(iris) : missing observations in cov/cor
In addition: Warning message: 
NAs introduced by coercion 

Cheers, Jonathan.

Jonathan Rougier                       Science Laboratories
Department of Mathematical Sciences    South Road
University of Durham                   Durham DH1 3LE
http://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/stats/people/jcr/jcr.html

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[Rd] Modification to cov and cor
Jonathan Rougier