[R-pkgs] Package foreign_0.8-0 is on CRAN

[Prof Brian Ripley]

There is an update for the `foreign' package now on the CRAN master and 
soon on a mirror near you.

This adds support for

DBF files (by Nicholas Lewin-Koh, Roger Bivand and myself)
Systat files written on MS-DOS/Windows (by Roger Bivand)

The reasons for announcing this update are

1) People quite often ask for DBF support.

2) There is a `maptools' update that depends on getting this one.

3) We have tested many Systat and DBF files, and even created some extreme
examples of our own.  But many applications write DBF files and inevitably
there are rogue files out there, so we would appreciate seeing examples
that either do not work as expected or crash R.

The `R Data Import/Export' manual in R-patched and R-devel has been 
revised to cover the new functionality.

-- 
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