attach
, if necessary. Each dataset now also has its own help file.It was a utility function, widely used in the scripts accompanying
the book described below. The function provided access to the dataset identified by name
. For flexibility, the datasets were provided in ASCII form, with the name of each variable listed in the first row of the file. This function reads the files and makes the data available as a data frame.
provide.data(data, path, options = list())
data.frame
sm
package.
sm.options
. The one used is
describe
, a logical flag. If describe=TRUE
(default), a
documentation file of the data is searched and printed, if available.
describe=TRUE
and a documentation file exists, this
is printed on the command windows or another windows, depending on
the type of platform where the program is executed.data
.dat and the documentation
file describing the data (if present) is assumed to be called data
.doc.
If the data.frame
is already attached, it is re-attached in the second
position of the search
list. To set describe=FALSE
for the rest of the current session, use
sm.options(describe=FALSE)
The function can easily be adapted to play a similar role for other packages.
data.frame
, attach
, sm
,
sm.options