[R] question mle again

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Because, as that help page makes clear, the 'parent environment' is 
easily confused with the 'parent frame', we tend not to use the 
former.

So the main answer to

> when/how is the the parent environment distinct from the enclosing 
> environment?

is 'when the writer meant the parent frame'.

On Mon, 7 Feb 2011, Joshua Wiley wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Bert Gunter <gunter.berton at gene.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Joshua Wiley <jwiley.psych at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> When a function cannot find a variable inside its own environment, it
>>> will look to its parent environment.
>>
>>
>> This is false. It will "look to" its **enclosing environment" /
>> "enclosure" . See
>> ?environment
>
> Thank you for the correction, Bert.  I had always interpreted:
>
> "If one follows the 'parent.env()' chain of enclosures back far
> enough from any environment, eventually one reaches the empty
> environment."
>
> to mean the parent environment was basically synonymous with the
> enclosure.  I re-read ?environment, but I think I am still missing
> something, so if I may ask a follow up question, would you explain or
> suggest additional places to look for when/how is the the parent
> environment distinct from the enclosing environment?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Josh
>>
>> (Note: This is fundamental to R scoping)
>>
>> -- Bert
>>
>> --
>> Bert Gunter
>> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595