Dear Peter and John,

Thank you for your explanations and suggestions. I also got an e-mail from
the R core team, explaining how the message is correct.

This was in fact a langugage/translation problem.

In the German version the part of the message we are talking about is in
English as well:

###
Lade nvtiges Paket: nnet
>
> Attache Paket: ?car?
>
> The following object(s) are masked from ?package:memisc?:
>
>     recode
###

 My confusion came from the message being:

> "The following object(s) are masked from 'package:A'"

instead of

> "The following object(s) from 'package:A' are masked"

which I find easier to understand. I interpreted the word "from" as "by".

Now I understand how it is meant.

Thank you for your answers,
Marion









2012/7/26 John Kane <jrkrideau@inbox.com>

> "The following object(s) are masked from 'package:A'"
> is equivalent to "The following object(s) from 'package:A' are masked"
> and perhaps that might be a more universally understood phrasing.
>
> I do find this better but I don't see any real need to change the status
> quo. It becomes fairly obvious after the first few imbroglios.
>
> On the other hand as they now teach passive sentence structure is harder
> to understand that postive, so perhaps:
>
> Objects x,yz in package A mask objects x,y z  in package B?
>
> John Kane
> Kingston ON Canada
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ehlers@ucalgary.ca
> > Sent: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:57:33 -0700
> > To: marion.wenty@gmail.com
> > Subject: Re: [R] package memisc: recode examples
> >
> > On 2012-07-25 09:29, Marion Wenty wrote:
> >> Thank you, John, for the clarification! :)
> >>
> >> I have written to the R core team pointing this out.
> >>
> >> Marion
> >
> > I hope that you included the wording of an improved message.
> > I believe that I speak English reasonably well and I disagree
> > with John on this. I think that the message is in fact unambiguous.
> > I don't know what the German message is, but perhaps it is not
> > unambiguous. Perhaps the translation of "from" to "von" is at
> > fault, since that is certainly not an unambiguous translation.
> >
> > If the intent were to say that the earlier-loaded package (here
> > 'memisc') is masking a function in the later-loaded package
> > (here 'car') then the message would say something like
> > "the following object(s) are masked _by_ package:memisc". I find
> > it easy to remember that the latest-loaded package is always the
> > one doing the masking.
> >
> > As it is now, when loading package A is followed by loading
> > package B, the message
> > "The following object(s) are masked from 'package:A'"
> > is equivalent to
> > "The following object(s) from 'package:A' are masked"
> > and perhaps that might be a more universally understood phrasing.
> >
> > Having said that there is, in my opinion, no need to alter the
> > status quo, I'll nevertheless make the following suggestion.
> > It may be not too difficult to rewrite the function producing
> > the messages to say something like:
> > "Package B is masking:"
> > "from package:A", function1, function2
> > "from package:C", function3
> > etc.
> >
> > But I confess that I have not looked at the code and hence
> > have no idea how much effort would be involved. I do feel
> > that R-Core has more important things to occupy them.
> >
> > Peter Ehlers
> >
> >>
> >> 2012/7/24 John Kane <jrkrideau@inbox.com>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: marion.wenty@gmail.com
> >>>> Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:48:10 +0200
> >>>> To: e.vettorazzi@uke.de
> >>>> Subject: Re: [R] package memisc: recode examples
> >>>
> >>>> I now tried
> >>>>
> >>>> find("recode",mode="function")
> >>>>
> >>>> and got
> >>>>
> >>>> [1] "package:car"    "package:memisc" - and got a warning
> >>>> message, which said:
> >>>>
> >>>> ##
> >>>>
> >>>> Lade nvtiges Paket: nnet
> >>>>
> >>>> Attache Paket: ?car?
> >>>>
> >>>> The following object(s) are masked from ?package:memisc?:
> >>>>
> >>>>      recode
> >>>>
> >>>> ##
> >>>>
> >>>> I would have interpreted this warning the other way around, but this
> >>>> might be a language problem of mine
> >>>
> >>> So would I and I'm a native English speaker.  I just think that some
> >>> stats/programmers see the world in a very different way than "real"
> >>> people.
> >>> :)
> >>>
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> >>
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