Errata

... available by from ... -> ... available from ...

This is about order of exposition. You use the 'cars' data set on p26, but where it comes from remains mysterious until you explain at bottom of p.30 that 'cars' is included within the R base package.

Note from the Author or Editor:
Great catch; we must have switched around sections in editing.

The explanation for the "cars" data set from page 30 should be moved to 26.

The last word in the paragraph should be: packages (with an "s").

Note from the Author or Editor:
Yes, the text should read "for directions on loading packages" not "for directions on loading package"

"open isource" -> "open source"

Note from the Author or Editor:
Oops; type is in the first sentence of the last paragraph on page 39 (printed page)

Text specifies 'earth' package; example uses 'nnet' package.

Note from the Author or Editor:
Good catch; the text should read "and the nnet package"

third line in 1st paragraph says
the most imporant
> the most important

Note from the Author or Editor:
Thanks for correcting this typo

in line 6

wrong: % R CMD CHECK nutshell

correct: % R CMD check nutshell

Note from the Author or Editor:
The current help file indicates that "check" should be lowercase. This errata is correct; the command should read

% R CMD check nutshell

In Category: Vectors; Object type: raw; Example CharToRaw("Hello") should be charToRaw("Hello")

Note from the Author or Editor:
good correction

we must have capitalized this incorrectly... please change to charToRaw

There are semicolons at the end of most lines of code within this example. On page 83 in summarizing the Google-Styleguide the following directive was written: "Omit semicolons at the end of lines when they are optional.

Since they are optional in the code on pages 109 and 110, they should be removed.

Note from the Author or Editor:
Yes, I think this is a valid point. It's not a serious mistake, but it would improve the book.

I should have stuck with the style guide an omitted the semicolons. (Sorry, old habit from other languages.)

Variable "my.TimeSeries" is referred to as "my.TimesSeries", with an extra 's'.

This mistake is repeated in the middle of p121.

Note from the Author or Editor:
That is correct. We should change my.TimesSeries to my.TimeSeries wherever it occurs.

In section "Old-School OOP in R: S3", "... you have to know how S3 classes they are implemented." should be corrected to "... you have to know how S3 classes are implemented." by removing "they" in the sentence.

Note from the Author or Editor:
Good catch! I am always embarrassed by grammatical errors like this.

The top line "S3 classes lack a lot of the structure of S3 objects."

should be changed to ...

"S3 classes lack a lot of the structure of S4 objects."

Note from the Author or Editor:
Change to "S3 classes lack the structure of S4 objects."

A parenthetical begins, "A closely related function, NextMethod. NextMethod, is used in a method called..."

The first "NextMethod" and its period should be removed.

Note from the Author or Editor:
I see this on page 141 of the PDF. Yes, this is a valid correction. Thanks!

The function name for slotNames(o) is split across two lines as in slot
Names(o).

Note from the Author or Editor:
Also on printed page 127

Please change this text so that slotNames(o) is not split across two lines.

# months are numbered from 00 to 11, so format the month correctly
from.month <- paste("&a=",
formatC(as.integer(format(from,"%m"))-1,width=2,flag="0"),
sep="");
from.day <- paste("&b=", format(from,"%d"), sep="");
from.year <- paste("&c=", format(from,"%Y"), sep="");

---Here the argument should be "&d=", not "&a".
to.month <- paste("&a=",
formatC(as.integer(format(to,"%m"))-1,width=2,flag="0"),
sep="");
---
to.day <- paste("&e=", format(to,"%d"), sep="");
to.year <- paste("&f=", format(to,"%Y"), sep="");
inter <- paste("&g=", interval, sep="");
last <- "&ignore=.csv";

Note from the Author or Editor:
Good catch.

Here is the full (corrected) code for clarity:

get.quotes <- function(ticker, from=(Sys.Date()-365), to=(Sys.Date()), interval="d") {

# define parts of the URL
base <- "http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?";
symbol <- paste("s=", ticker, sep="");

# months are numbered from 00 to 11, so format the month correctly
from.month <- paste("&a=",
formatC(as.integer(format(from,"%m"))-1,width=2,flag="0"),
sep="");
from.day <- paste("&b=", format(from,"%d"), sep="");
from.year <- paste("&c=", format(from,"%Y"), sep="");
to.month <- paste("&d=",
formatC(as.integer(format(to,"%m"))-1,width=2,flag="0"),
sep="");
to.day <- paste("&e=", format(to,"%d"), sep="");
to.year <- paste("&f=", format(to,"%Y"), sep="");
inter <- paste("&g=", interval, sep="");
last <- "&ignore=.csv";

# put together the url
url <- paste(base, symbol, from.month, from.day, from.year,
to.month, to.day, to.year, inter, last, sep="");

# get the file
tmp <- read.csv(url);
cbind(symbol=ticker,tmp);
}

Where it says "...create a matrix with four rows of five elements" shoud say "create a matrix with five rows of four elements", since is what it uses in the example.

Note from the Author or Editor:
should be page 186 of the book

Yes, the numbers are reversed

Unless I'm missing something, I think the end of the paragraph should read

The left side of the formula represents the vector to be unstacked (in this case, Close). The right side indicates the groups to create (in this case, symbol).

Note from the Author or Editor:
Correct; please change the sentence "The left side of the formula represents the vector to be unstacked (in this case, symbol). The right side indicates the groups to create (in this case Close)." to "The right side of the formula represents the vector to be unstacked (in this case, symbol). The left side indicates the groups to create (in this case Close).

This code sample seems to have multiple typos, unless I'm missing something. The first argument to transform is batting.w.names.2008, this seems like it should be batting.2008. In the same expression, "bat=" seems like it should be "bats=" as the next command requires bats to be a factor. Finally, AVG doesn't exist--I assume it's H/AB.

Corrected code:

data(batting.2008)
&#8203;batting.w.names.2008 <- transform(batting.2008, bats=as.factor(bats), throws=as.factor(throws))
batting.w.names.2008$AVG <- batting.w.names.2008$H/batting.w.names.2008$AB
cdplot(bats~G_batting, data=batting.w.names.2008, subset=(batting.w.names.2008$AB>100))&#8203;

Note from the Author or Editor:
I think this looks correct. I believe that batting.w.names.2008 is defined elsewhere in the book, but I can't find it in 2 minutes (so it's not fair to expect readers to find it). Here's a corrected example:

> batting.w.names.2008 <- transform(batting.2008,
+ AVG=H/AB, bats=as.factor(bats), throws=as.factor(throws))
> cdplot(bats~AVG,data=batting.w.names.2008,
+ subset=(batting.w.names.2008$AB>100))

I believe "acres.harvested" should be replaced with "domestic.catch.2006".

Note from the Author or Editor:
Oops, changed the example while writing, but left in the old code. The example should have read

> pie(domestic.catch.2006, init.angle=100, cex=.6)

In the fourth comment, "y-intercept" is misspelled as "y-inctercept."

Note from the Author or Editor:
Good find

Please change "y-inctercept" to "y-intercept"

Use of the term "distribution-free tests" is archaic. These are non-parametric tests, which term is used once later in the text. You will just confuse readers.

Note from the Author or Editor:
I think this error might be valid. Peter Dalgaard uses the term "distribution-free tests" in the book "Introductory Statistics with R." The term "non-parametric" may be preferable. It is used in

- a section header on page 357
- in the sentence "A good alternative to the tests described in ?Normal Distribution-Based Tests? on page 344 are distribution-free tests."
- in the sentence "The Wilcoxon test is the distribution-free equivalent to the t-test:"
- in the line "The Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test is a distribution-free equivalent to ANOVA analysis:"
- In the header "Distribution-Free Tabular Data Tests" on page 368
- In the line "The Friedman rank sum test is a distribution-free relative of the chi-squared test. In R, this is implemented through the friedman.test function:" on page 368

In each case, I believe that we should replace "distribution-free" with "non-parametric"

Instead of 5325 there should be 5326 in the numerator.

Note from the Author or Editor:
This is correct; the code should read:

> 5326 / (5326 + 6067)
[1] 0.46748

List of plot outputs in bullet-point format on bottom 1/3 of page isn't in the same order as "caption=..." list in the code sample above.

Note from the Author or Editor:
The author is correct. The bullet list would be more clear if it matched the order shown in the function definition.