From ggrothendieck at gmail.com  Thu Jul  7 20:44:18 2005
From: ggrothendieck at gmail.com (Gabor Grothendieck)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 14:44:18 -0400
Subject: [Rd] write.csv (PR#7992)
In-Reply-To: <42CD72FD.6010401@stats.uwo.ca>
References: <20050707162756.E6D97A49F@slim.kubism.ku.dk>
	<971536df05070709387b3f64d6@mail.gmail.com>
	<42CD72FD.6010401@stats.uwo.ca>
Message-ID: <971536df050707114429187846@mail.gmail.com>

I just checked the svn.  I did not realize it had been changed that way
so you are right, its better and possibly marginally acceptable although
I do think it would be preferable to set the defaults rather than the
values though I would no longer argue as strongly.

On 7/7/05, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> On 7/7/2005 12:38 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> The old header (which teasingly displayed some parameters and then
> ignored them) was clearly wrong, but the new one doesn't display the
> parameters.
> 
> This is pretty reasonable practice.  It's a wrapper that provides a
> subset of the functionality, but is guaranteed to produce a legal file
> of the type it claims to produce.  I don't see anything wrong with it.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> 
> >
> > 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
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >>
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
>



[Rd] write.csv (PR#7992)
Gabor Grothendieck