[Rd] Error Reporting

[ivo welch]

Dear R developers:  May I suggest that future versions of R improve a
little on the error reporting?  For example, right now, I am trying to
figure out which of my column names in a select statement has been
mis-spelled:

Error in `[.data.frame`(x, r, vars, drop = drop) :
        undefined columns selected

It would be nice if it could say what the name of the undefined column is.

Of course, I have already begged a couple of times that errors like
this be preceded by a backtrace or the last line number from the
user's R program.

joke.R:22: Error in `[.data.frame`(x, r, vars, drop = drop) :
        undefined columns selected: "non.existing.name" in "data.frame.name"

I don't understand why this is difficult (simply storing the currently
executing line and/or linenumber) as the program executes---but then,
I am a lousy freerider who does not look at the code.  (All I do is
occasionally donate to the R org.)

of course, I appreciate the great language you have put together.
just begging to make it a little better.  (yes, I do not want to use
ESS.)

regards,

/ivo