[R] Where is gdata?

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Stephen Liu <satimis at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Win 7 64 bit
> R 32 bit
>
>> install.packages("gregmisc")
> Installing package(s) into ‘C:\Users\satimiswin764\Documents/R/win-library/2.12’
> (as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
> --- Please select a CRAN mirror for use in this session ---
> also installing the dependency ‘gmodels’
>
> trying URL
> 'http://cran.ms.unimelb.edu.au/bin/windows/contrib/2.12/gmodels_2.15.0.zip'
> Content type 'application/zip' length 76016 bytes (74 Kb)
> opened URL
> downloaded 74 Kb
>
> trying URL
> 'http://cran.ms.unimelb.edu.au/bin/windows/contrib/2.12/gregmisc_2.1.1.zip'
> Content type 'application/zip' length 97482 bytes (95 Kb)
> opened URL
> downloaded 95 Kb
>
> package 'gmodels' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
> package 'gregmisc' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
>
> The downloaded packages are in
>        C:\Users\satimiswin764\AppData\Local\Temp\RtmpP3dNfa\downloaded_packages
>
> Installation went through without problem.
>
>
>> library(gregmisc)
> Loading required package: gmodels
> Loading required package: gplots
> Loading required package: gtools
> Loading required package: caTools
> Loading required package: bitops
> Loading required package: grid
>
> Attaching package: 'gplots'
>
> The following object(s) are masked from 'package:stats':
>
>    lowess
>
> Warning message:
>
>        The `gregmisc' *package* has converted into a *bundle*
>        containing four sub-packages: gdata, gtools, gmodels, and gplots.
>        Please load these packages directly.
>
>
>> library(gdata)
>> gdata
> Error: object 'gdata' not found
>
>> gdata()
> Error: could not find function "gdata"
>
>
> Please advise what mistake I have committed.  TIA

In the end it appears that there was no problem in accessing the gdata
package or any of its components and that the poster's problem stemmed
from issuing this series of commands:

library(AER)
data()

at which point the poster saw the names of AER data files listed and
assumed that the data() command showed the data set names of the last
loaded library.  Based on this assumption when he issued this series
of commands:

library(gdata)
data()

and saw AER listed again he thought that gdata had not been loaded.
In fact the data() command lists the names of the data sets of *all*
installed packages, and not just the last loaded one, so if AER is the
alphabetically first package that is installed it will always appear
first.  Thus to view gdata's data set names in this list one would
have to scroll down to view the names off the screen.

Things which confused the issue further were that the poster was using
a virtual machine to run R, which might have caused problems in
determining where the library was located but in fact did not, and one
responder somehow assumed that the question related to read.xls (a
function in gdata) and its perl dependency but as indicated the
problem actually had nothing specifically to do with gdata at all much
less read.xls or perl.

-- 
Statistics & Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com