[Rd] read.ftable, write.ftable -- move to base?

[David Firth]

This is just to suggest that the functions read.ftable and write.ftable 
be moved from the stats package to the base package.

As I understand it, this would allow ftable format to be used (more 
easily than at present) for datasets placed in the "data" subdirectory 
of packages.  And that would be a good thing?  (It would also make the 
advice given in Writing R Extensions,
> Currently, data files can have one of three types as indicated by 
> their extension: plain R code (.R or .r), tables (.tab, .txt, or 
> .csv)...
clearer in the sense that "table" could be read to mean the same thing 
as it does in other parts of R.)

David

Professor David Firth
Dept of Statistics
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

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