[R] Masked objects

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, Stephen R. Laniel wrote:

> Potentially Stupid Question Department:
> 
> I just tried to load a few packages in a row.  First I loaded MASS, then
> tseries, then nls.  A typical error message from the last two looked like
> this:
> 
> Attaching Package "package:nls":
> 
> 
>         The following object(s) are masked from package:MASS :
> 
>          profile
> 
> Is this a big deal?  Does it mean that I lose any functionality from the
> latter two packages?

No, no. The two definitions are identical.

The problem here is that the version of nls you are using is a few days'
old, and MASS is several months' old.  There is a potential problem here
in that different package writers may have different definitions.  These
things usually arise when two or more people try to add missing S(-PLUS)
functionality, and they usually add it in the same way.

Remember that R is rapidly changing beta software, so it is impossible
to keep up with this kind of thing. In the next release profile
will move to the base, and nls will become a standard package.


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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