[R] Resolving conflicting function definitions {was "Error in rm.outlier"}

[Richard M. Heiberger]

I agree that conflicts() belongs in the posting guide.  I devoted
a small section in my book to that very topic.  Here is the lead paragraph
which you are welcome to use


Inexplicable Error Messages

In general, weird and inexplicable errors mean that there are masked
function names.  That's the easy part.  The trick is to find which name.  
The name conflict is frequently inside a function that has been called by
the function that you called directly.
The general method, which we usually won't need, is to trace
the action of the function you called, and all the functions it called
in turn.  See {\tt ?trace}, {\tt ?browser}, {\tt ?recover} and {\tt ?debugger}
for help on using these functions.

The method we will use is to find all occurrences of our names that might mask
system functions.  S-Plus and R provide two functions that help us.
See {\tt ?find} and {\tt ?conflicts} for further detail.