[R-SIG-Mac] A question I'm sure I should be able to answer myself

[Tracy Lightcap]

Friends:

Here's what's happening. I load an environment with some of my  
datafiles then invoke edit on one of them for test purposes.

 > edit (pub09)

Here's the file structure:

 > str(pub09)
'data.frame':	50 obs. of  15 variables:
  $ id        : int  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...
  $ state     : Factor w/ 50 levels "AK","AL","AR",..: 2 1 4 3 5 6 7 8  
9 10 ...
  $ drug07    : num  0.537 0.185 0.733 0.666 0.948 0.406 0.375 1 0.686  
0.408 ...
  $ percapin06: int  26940 33257 27849 24829 34555 34437 44266 34123  
32021 27988 ...
  $ file06    : int  213284 24213 268126 210265 3287378 189415 407979  
25034 1390031 360332 ...
  $ gjjudges06: int  144 44 171 115 1922 150 180 24 554 197 ...
  $ csi06     : num  39.8 32 49.6 49.4 59.5 ...
  $ pop06     : int  4590 677 6166 2809 36250 4766 3496 853 18058  
9342 ...
  $ berkson06 : int  9 15 9 12 16 6 15 4 15 0 ...
  $ ifin05    : int  3 4 1 3 2 2 4 4 2 1 ...
  $ stafin05  : num  0.66 0.93 0.19 0.64 0.42 0.5 0.92 0.9 0.51 0.29 ...
  $ pro05     : num  0.34 0.44 0.7 0.4 0.88 0.41 0.56 0.55 0.92 0.39 ...
  $ work06    : num  1481 550 1568 1828 1710 ...
  $ lpop06    : num  3.66 2.83 3.79 3.45 4.56 ...
  $ newpro05  : num  34 44 70 40 88 41 56 55 92 39 ...

I can add/delete rows using the icons with no problems in the editor.  
Attempting to add columns with the icons, however, results in this  
error message:

Error in edit.data.frame(pub09)  :
SET_VECTOR_ELT() can only be applied to a 'list', not a 'character'

Then R shows the beach ball and never resolves the difficulty. And it  
shows further strangeness: if the edit window is over the console, all  
text in the console below is erased. I end up having to force quit  
every time.

This is only a bother; the datafile isn't affected nor the  
environment. Besides, I usually work on my data in a spreadsheet, then  
import. Still, if the editor is to be used for classes, I need to find  
out why this is happening. I'm guessing it is due to character strings  
in the datafile, but I can't be sure of that given the circumstances.

Model: MacBookPro2,2, BootROM MBP22.00A5.B07, 2 processors, Intel Core  
2 Duo, 2.33 GHz, 2 GB
R:  R 2.9.1 GUI 1.28 Tiger build 32-bit (5444)

Hope I've given enough data to make the problem clear.

Tracy Lightcap
Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science
LaGrange College
601 Broad St.
LaGrange  GA  30240-2999
(O) tlightcap at lagrange.edu (H) altlamp at mindspring.com
706.880.8226
www.lagrange.edu/academics/political-science/faculty/tlightcap.aspx