[R] Getting and using a function

[Charilaos Skiadas]

On Apr 12, 2007, at 11:28 PM, Thomas L Jones wrote:

> library (gam)  all I get is an error message.
>
> Error in library (gam)  : there is no package called 'gam'
>
> Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something  
> different? For
> example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not  
> yet been
> downloaded?

It means "there is no package called 'gam' in your computer at this  
moment". You need to download it first. You can probably do this  
through the application menus. I am on a Mac, but the menus should be  
similar. I have a "Packages&Data" menu, that has a "Package  
Installer" item.

Alternatively, you can use the "install.packages" command I think:
install.packages("gam")

R has a bit of a learning curve, you'll probably want to read some of  
the basic guides first, if you haven't yet. Have a look at these:

http://www.math.csi.cuny.edu/Statistics/R/simpleR/
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.html
http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html
http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html

Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College