[R] aggregate example : where is the state.region variable?

[MARK LEEDS]

these people/experts provide all these packages and documentation as a FAVOR 
and for the fact that they enjoy spreading knowledge/statistical computing 
abilities etc.  It's not their job so I think criticism of the docs and the 
fact that they use a variable from another place is kind of harsh.

                                                                             
                                                      Mark





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Kane" <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca>
To: "Gabor Grothendieck" <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
Cc: "R R-help" <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: [R] aggregate example : where is the state.region variable?


>
> --- Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Its not part of state.x77.  Its a completely
>> separate variable.
>> Try ls("package:datasets") and notice its in the
>> list
>> or try ?state.region and note that its a variable in
>> datasets.
>
> Thanks. I was wondering if it was going something like
> that.
>
> However, it is a bloody stupid example, at least to a
> newbie.  A call to another data.set in what is
> supposed to be a simple example is very confusing.
>
> When someone is apparently illustrating a function
> with a simple one line command I don't expect them to
> call another data set, apparently create a new
> variable (Region), and use that new variable as the
> grouping variable without a word of explanation of
> what the example is doing.
>
> If I sound a bit annoyed it is because I am. It might
> be nice to have an example illlustate the funtion,not
> do a couple of other undocumented things as well.
>>
>>
>> On 8/21/06, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> > I was looking ?aggregate and ran the first example
>> >
>> >  aggregate(state.x77, list(Region = state.region),
>> > mean)
>> >
>> > The variables in state.x77 appear to be :
>> > > state.x77
>> > Population Income Illiteracy Life Exp Murder HS
>> Grad
>> > Frost   Area
>> >
>> > Where is the "state.region" variable coming from?
>> >
>> > ______________________________________________
>> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
>> reproducible code.
>> >
>>
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>