
Package: R.utils
================

Version: 2.6.0 [2017-11-05]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Argument 'install' of use() now defaults to option 'R.utils.use.install',
   which in turn defaults to environment variable 'R_R_UTILS_USE_INSTALL'.
   If neither is set, the default is TRUE.
 
 o ROBUSTNESS: Now gcDLLs() runs the garbage collector before removing stray
   DLLs in order for any finalizers who rely on the DLL to be called before the
   DLL is removed.

 o loadObject() and loadToEnv() give more informative error message if an
   error occurs while reading from a file / connection.

 o All withNnn() functions gained argument 'substitute' making it possible to
   pass an expression object, e.g. withTimeout(expr, subsitute = FALSE, ...).
   The expection is withCapture(), where, the now deprecated (see below),
   argument 'substitute' means something else for legacy reasons.

BUG FIXES:

 o withTimeout() would produce a regular error but not a TimeoutException
   for timeouts reaching the _total_ CPU time limit while it would work
   for those reaching the _elapsed_ CPU time limit.  Thanks to Alexej Gossmann
   at Tulane University for troubleshooting and provide a fix.

 o findSourceTraceback() could fail and give an obscure error when for instance
   the 'XML' package was attached.  It now tries a bit harder to locate the
   internal 'srcfile' object.

 o Forgot to register S3 method `[`() for GenericSummary.

 o intToOct() would convert to hexadecimals.
 
 o intToBin() would output garbage for negative values.

DEPRECATE AND DEFUNCT:

 o Argument 'substitute' of withCapture() has been renamed to 'replace'.
   Code that calls withCapture(..., substitute = ...) will still work, but
   the use of 'subsitute' is deprecated and will later become defunct.
   The purpose of this change of argument name is so that the meaning of
   'substitute' can be harmonized with the other withNnn() functions.

 o Deprecated evalWithTimeout(); use withTimeout() - the preferred name.


Version: 2.5.0 [2016-11-07]

BUG FIXES:

 o withCapture(x <- 1L) would drop integer suffix 'L' from the output when run
   in non-interactive mode.

DEPRECATE AND DEFUNCT:

 o CLEANUP: Removed operator `%<-%` which was defunct since 2.4.0.
   An alternative is to use ditto of the future package.

 o CLEANUP: Made resetWarnings() defunct.

 
Version: 2.4.0 [2016-09-13]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added strayDLLs() and gcDLLs() to identify and unload stray DLLs that was
   left behind by packages that have already been unloaded.

 o Added nullfile().

 o Now setThreshold() for Verbose accepts also logical values.

 o Argument 'absolutePath' for Arguments$getReadablePathname() was renamed to
   'absolute'.  For backward compatibililty, the old name will still work for
   some time.

DEPRECATE AND DEFUNCT:

 o CLEANUP: Defunct `%<-%` in favor of `%<-%` in the future package.

 o CLEANUP: Deprecated arrayIndex().  arrayInd() in base (>= 2.11.0)
   provides the same functionality.

CODE REFACTORING:

 o Package now formally requires R (>= 2.14.0) released October 2011.

 
Version: 2.3.0 [2016-04-13]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added hsize().

 o Added tmpfile() for creating temporary files with content that is deleted
   automatically by the garbage collector unless there is a reference to it.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now compressFile() and decompressFile(), and therefore also
   functions such as gzip() and gunzip(), output atomically by writing to a
   temporary file which is only renamed when completed.

DEPRECATE AND DEFUNCT:

 o CLEANUP: Deprecated `%<-%` in favor of `%<-%` in the future package.

CODE REFACTORING:

 o Package now formally requires R (>= 2.14.0) released Oct 2011.
 
 
Version: 2.2.0 [2015-12-09]

NEW FEATURES:

 o loadObject() and saveObject() gained argument 'format' in order to support
   also RDS files (in addition to XDR files).  File formats XDR and RDS are
   supported.  The default format is inferred from the filename extension.  If
   this is not possible, then the XDR format is assumed (default; backward
   compatible).

 o mkdirs() gained arguments 'mustWork' and 'maxTries'.

 o seqToHumanReadable() gained argument 'tau'.

 o R.utils::commandArgs() now also ackowledges 'argv' set by the littler
   executable.

 o R.utils::commandArgs() recognizes more reserved command-line arguments, e.g.
   --debugger-args=N, --min-vsize=N and --min-nsize=N.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now writeDataFrame(..., sep, quote = FALSE) asserts that none of
   the columns contains the field separator 'sep', because then the written
   file would be corrupt/invalid.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Explicit import of all 'graphics', 'grDevices', 'stats' and
   'utils' functions.

DOCUMENTATION:

 o Clarified in help for compressFile() et al. that these functions remove the
   input file by default after the output file is generated.  Thanks to Ben
   Bond-Lamberty (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) for pointing out this
   potential pitfall.

BUG FIXES:

 o seqToHumanReadable(c(1:2, 4:5)) gave "1-2, 4, 5".

 o withTimeout() did not work in non-English locales. Thanks to Arnaud Malapert
   at University Nice Sophia Antipolis for reporting on this.

 o GString ignored "simple" attributes, e.g. $[tolower]{y}. Thanks to Andre
   Mikulec for reporting on this.

 o downloadFile() via https://<user>:<pwd>@<domain>/ gave an error.

DEPRECATE AND DEFUNCT:

 o CLEANUP: Deprecated resetWarnings().
 
 
Version: 2.1.0 [2015-05-27]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added compressPDF() to compress PDFs.

 o If, and only if, 'path' is an existing directory, then copyFile(pathname,
   path) copies file 'pathname' to the 'path' directory (previously destination
   always had to be a file). Analogously, renameFile(pathname, path) moves file
   'pathname' (not a directory though) to destination directory 'path'.

 o CLEANUP: createLink(..., skip = TRUE) would give a false warning if a proper
   link already existed and the target was elsewhere than the current directory.

 o INCONSISTENCY: captureOutput(..., collapse = "\n") did not drop newline of the
   last line as captureOutput(..., collapse = "\r") and any other collapse != "\n"
   strings.  Added package tests.

BUG FIXES:

 o captureOutput(..., file = "foo.txt") gave an error.
 
 
Version: 2.0.2 [2015-04-27]

BUG FIXES:

 o Arguments$getReadablePathname(NA, mustExist = FALSE) no longer gives an error
   with recent R devel (>= 2015-04-23) related to an update on how nchar()
   handles missing values. This bug affected only Windows.

CODE REFACTORING:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now nchar(..., type = "chars") is used internally for all file and
   directory names.

 
Version: 2.0.1 [2015-04-24]

NEW FEATURES:

 o R.utils no longer generates a warning if the R session is saved when R
   exits. Thanks to Jose Alquicira Hernandez for reporting on this.

BUG FIXES:

 o toCamelCase() with missing values would give an error in R devel
   (>= 2015-04-23) due to an update how nchar() handles missing values.
 
 
Version: 2.0.0 [2015-02-28]

NEW FEATURES:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now %<-% evaluates the expression in a local() environment, and
   it assign to environments, e.g. env$a %<-% 1.

 o Added compressFile(), decompressFile() and isCompressedFile() methods, which
   gzip()/gunzip() and the new bzip2()/bunzip2() now use. Thanks to Peter
   Hickey for pushing for this.

 o Now eget() uses inherits = FALSE (was TRUE) and mode = "default" (was
   "any"), where "default" corresponds to the mode of argument 'default',
   unless it's NULL when mode = "any" is used.

 o Now commandArgs(asValues = TRUE, adhoc = TRUE) interprets 'x:=1:10' such that 'x'
   become the integer vector 1:10.  Likewise, you can do 'x:=seq(1,3, by = 0.1)'
   and 'x:=pi'.  To get the string "pi", use quotation marks, i.e. 'x:="pi"',
   or just 'x=pi'.

 o Added cmsg(), cout(), ccat(), cprintf(), cprint(), cstr(), cshow() for
   outputting to "console", which is neither R stdout nor stderr and can
   therefor not be intercepted via capture.output(), sink() or similar.  These
   functions are useful for outputting messages that requires user's attention
   and are often followed by a prompt via readline(), which also cannot be
   captured.

 o Added mpager() which is a "pager" function compatible with file.show() that
   will display file contents on standard error.

 o Just like for listDirectory(), argument 'recursive' of findFiles() can in
   addition to be FALSE (depth = 0) and TRUE (depth = +Inf), be any non-negative
   numeric number specifying how deeply the recursive search should be done.

 o On Windows, Arguments$getReadablePathname() now gives an informative warning
   if a pathname of length 256 or longer is used/generated, which are not
   supported on Windows.

DOCUMENTATION:

 o Fixed mistake in help("captureOutput"). Thanks to Mikko Korpela (Issue #4)
   for reporting on this.

BUG FIXES:

 o use(..., quietly = FALSE) no longer captures/buffers the output, which
   prevented it from displaying full prompt messages that required a user
   response.  use(..., quietly = TRUE), which is the default, no longer tries to
   ask user of Windows and OS X if they wish to install from source if the
   binary is older.

 o Now the returned value of all withNnn() functions preserves the "visibility"
   of the eval():uated expression.  Added package tests.

 o withCapture({}) no longer generates a warning.

 o Now isUrl(NA) returns FALSE (instead of NA).

 o seqToIntervals(integer(0)) gave error "object 'res' not found".

 o attachLocally() on an environment would remove the attached fields/variables
   from that environment.

CODE REFACTORING:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Forgot to declare "default" warnings() as an S3 method.

 o R.utils::use() without arguments attaches 'R.utils'.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Package test coverage is 66%.


 
Version: 1.34.0 [2014-10-07]

CODE REFACTORING:

 o Added URL and BugReports fields to DESCRIPTION.

 o Submitted to CRAN.
 
 
Version: 1.33.10 [2014-10-03]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added shell.exec2(), which does a better job than shell.exec() in opening
   pathnames with forward slashes and files on mapped drives, which may or may
   not open depending software, e.g. Google Chrome fails to open the latter.
   Add options(browser = function(...) R.utils::shell.exec2(...)) to your
   ~/.Rprofile file to make browseURL() use this function instead of
   shell.exec().  This function is only useful on Windows.

BUG FIXES:

 o Now Arguments$getReadablePathname(file, path) ignores 'path' if 'file'
   specifies an absolute pathname.
 
 
Version: 1.33.9 [2014-10-03]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Now countLines() automatically supports gzipped files as well. Thanks to
   Sarah Nelson at Dept of Biostatistics at University of Washington for the
   suggestion.

 o Now downloadFile("https://...") will use 'curl', and if not available 'wget',
   to download the file over the HTTPS protocol.  Previously only 'wget' was
   used.  The 'curl' software is available on more operating systems, include
   OS X, whereas 'wget' sometimes needs a separate installation.
 
 
Version: 1.33.8 [2014-10-02]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'unmap' to filePath() for "following" paths that are on
   mapped Windows drives.

 o CLEANUP: use() would try temporarily set package repository options even
   when not needed.  This could trigger unnecessary warnings for users who
   haven't set a default CRAN mirror and using use() to load/attach an already
   installed package.
 
 
Version: 1.33.7 [2014-09-18]

NEW FEATURES:

 o New default for writeDataFrame() - argument 'col.names = !append'. Also, if
   append = TRUE, header comments are only written if specified. Added package
   system test for writeDataFrame().
 
 
Version: 1.33.6 [2014-09-16]

BUG FIXES:

 o getAbsolutePath("/tmp", expandTilde = TRUE) returned "//tmp". This would in
   turn have implications on getRelativePath(), e.g. getRelativePath("/tmp/a",
   relativeTo = "/tmp") returned "../../tmp/a".
 
 
Version: 1.33.5 [2014-09-15]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added withSeed() and withSink().

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now withOptions() also resets all the options available upon
   entry even if no explicit options were specified.  This covers the case when
   'expr' changes the options and/or adds new options, e.g.
   withOptions({ options(width = 10, foo = "new"); str(letter) }).
 
 
Version: 1.33.4 [2014-09-05]

BUG FIXES:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Arguments$getWritablePathname() could sometimes generate warning
   "file.remove(pathnameT) : cannot remove file 'file...', reason 'Permission
   denied'.  Now it tries to remove that files several times before giving up.
 
 
Version: 1.33.3 [2014-09-04]

NEW FEATURES:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now copyDirectory(), just as copyFile() already did, silently
   drops arguments 'copy.mode' and 'copy.date' for older R versions where 
   base::file.copy() does not support them.
 
 
Version: 1.33.2 [2014-09-01]

BUG FIXES:

 o mkdirs() could return "object 'res' not found" error.
 
 
Version: 1.33.1 [2014-08-25]

BUG FIXES:

 o countLines() would not count the last line if it did not contain a newline.
   It would also give an error if the newline characters were only CR.  This 
   despite it was documented that both cases were supported.  Added package 
   system tests for them.
 
 
Version: 1.33.0 [2014-08-24]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added mprint(), mcat(), mstr(), mshow() and mprintf() that work like the
   corresponding print(), cat(), etc., but output using message(), which in
   turn sends to standard error (instead of standard output). See also mout().

 o Added withLocale().

 o Now the test for target discrepancies by createLink(..., skip = TRUE) is
   more forgiving on Windows (by assuming a case-insensitive file system) 
   before generating a warning.

 o Now useRepos(..., fallback = TRUE), and hence use(), will fallback to
   known/predefined CRAN repositories in case '@CRAN@' is not set. If done, it
   will give an informative warning message.

BUG FIXES:

 o commandArgs() would drop command-line arguments with periods, hyphens, or
   underscores in their names, e.g. --src_file=x.
 
 
Version: 1.32.6 [2014-08-12]

BUG FIXES:

 o withCapture({ if (T) 1 else 2 }) would give a parse error on "unexpected
   'else'", because the internal deparsing puts the 'else' statement on a new
   line whenever an if-else statement is enclosed in an { ... } expression.
   This problem is also described in R help thread "deparse() and the 'else'
   statement" by Yihui Xie on 2009-11-09
   [http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/e8/help/09/11/4204.html].  The workaround
   is to detect standalone 'else' statements and merge them with the previous
   line.  Added package system test for this case.
 
 
Version: 1.32.5 [2014-05-15]

BUG FIXES:

 o egsub() would return an invalid expression if the input had definitions of
   functions without arguments, e.g. egsub("x", "x", substitute(y <- 
   function() 0)) which would throw "Error: badly formed function expression" 
   if deparsed/printed. Added package test for this.
 
 
Version: 1.32.4 [2014-05-14]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Now egsub() also works with functions, in case it substitutes on the body of
   the function.

DOCUMENTATION:

 o Added clarification to help("withTimeout") on the limitations of the
   function and when it is/is not possible to interrupt a function via timeouts.

SOFTWARE QUALITY:

 o Made the package test on absolute and relative paths less conservative,
   because it gave an error on Windows systems that have set R_USER to a
   Cygwin-flavored directory, which causes normalizePath("~") to return a
   non-existing directory.  Thanks Uwe Ligges (CRAN) for reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.32.3 [2014-05-08]

BUG FIXES:

 o filePath("./././././") now returns "." (was "").  Added package system tests
   for filePath().
 
 
Version: 1.32.2 [2014-05-07]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added support for substitution of expressions in withCapture() based on
   regular expressions utilizing new egsub().

 o Added egsub(), which is gsub() for expressions with some bells and whistles.
 
 
Version: 1.32.1 [2014-05-04]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Now downloadFile() "adjusts" the output filename by decoding URL encoded
   characters, e.g. 'Hello%20world.txt' becomes 'Hello world.txt'.  Also, 
   unsafe filename characters (':', '*', '\') are encoded, e.g. 
   'How_to:_RSP.txt' becomes 'How_to%3A_RSP.txt'.

 o Added argument 'adjust' to Arguments$getReadablePathname().  When adjust =
   "url" it decodes and encodes the filename the same way as downloadFile() 
   now adjusts it (see above).
 
 
Version: 1.32.0 [2014-05-01]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added captureOutput() which is much faster than capture.output() for large
   outputs.  withCapture() utilizes this now.  Added package system tests for
   both functions.

 o use() now installs missing packages from all set repositories (as before)
   and uses the mainstream (CRAN and BioC) ones as fall backs.

 o Added withRepos() for installing/updating packages using a set of
   temporarily set repositories.  It is possible to specify repositories by
   names, which are then selected from a set of known repositories, e.g.
   withRepos(install.packages("edgeR"), repos = "[[BioC]]").

 o Added withOptions() for evaluating an expression with a set of options
   temporarily set.

 o Renamed evalCapture() to withCapture() and evalWithTimeout() and
   withTimeout().  The old name is kept for backward compatibility, but will
   eventually be deprecated.
 
 
Version: 1.31.1 [2014-04-29]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Now use("<repos>::<pkg>") will detect when a repository is unknown and give
   an informative error message on how to update option 'repos'.
 
 
Version: 1.31.0 [2014-04-26]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added assignment operator %<-% for delayed assignments.

 o Added option "evalCapture/newline".
 
 
Version: 1.30.7 [2014-04-26]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'xtrim' to draw() for density object.

 o CLEANUP: createLink(..., skip = TRUE) no longer warns if the link file was
   skipped.  Now it only warns if the skipped link file links to a different
   file than the intended target file.

CODE REFACTORING:

 o CLEANUP: Dropping '::' in calls where possible.
 
 
Version: 1.30.6 [2014-04-24]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'newline' to evalCapture().
 
 
Version: 1.30.5 [2014-04-22]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'substitute' to evalCapture() for substituting symbols "on
   the fly" in the expression before it is evaluated.
 
 
Version: 1.30.4 [2014-04-18]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'modifiedOnly' to sourceDirectory(), which was previously
   passed via '...' to sourceTo(), and it now defaults to TRUE.
 
 
Version: 1.30.3 [2014-04-15]

BUG FIXES:

 o use() would not install package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.30.2 [2014-04-08]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'max.deparse.length' to evalCapture().
 
 
Version: 1.30.1 [2014-04-06]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Now evalCapture() utilizes deparse() to get the source code and acknowledges
   options 'deparse.cutoff' to control the code wrapping.  Previously
   capture.output(print()) was used.

BUG FIXES:

 o WORKAROUND: moveInSearchPath() redirects any messages to stderr that
   base::attach() sent to stdout.  UPDATE: This attach() issue has been fixed
   in R 3.1.0 patched.
 
 
Version: 1.30.0 [2014-04-06]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Vectorized detachPackage(), getAbsolutePath(), getRelativePath(),
   isAbsolutePath(), isDirectory(), isFile(), isOpen(), isPackageInstalled(), 
   touchFile() and toUrl(). Added package system tests for several of them.  
   For backward compatibility, getAbsolutePath(), getRelativePath(), 
   isAbsolutePath(), isFile(), and isDirectory() treats an empty vector of
   path/pathnames equal to ".".  However, in a future version, empty results
   will returned by these too.

BUG FIXES:

 o toCamelCase(character(0L)) gave an error.
 
 
Version: 1.29.11 [2014-04-02]

BUG FIXES:

 o str() and summary() for Verbose did not acknowledge argument 'level'.
 
 
Version: 1.29.10 [2014-02-28]

DOCUMENTATION:

 o Added a help section on privileges required on Windows in order for
   createLink() to work.
 
 
Version: 1.29.9 [2014-02-24]

NEW FEATURES:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Added a package redundancy test for a bug occurring in R.oo
   (< 1.18.0) causing R to core dump (with "Error: SET_VECTOR_ELT() can only be
   applied to a 'list', not a 'integer'") or gives an error (with "Error: not a
   weak reference") under certain conditions when a registered finalizer tried
   to reload R.oo if it was unloaded.  This occurred only on R prior to R 3.0.2
   patched (2014-02-21 r65057).  Also, the 'methods' package needs to be 
   attached, so it is still not clear what is the true cause of the bug.  In
   R.oo (>= 1.18.0) this bug is avoided.
 
 
Version: 1.29.8 [2014-01-27]

BUG FIXES:

 o Although eget(K = 2, cmdArgs = TRUE) would use command-line argument 'K=1'
   as the default (instead of K=2), calling eget("K", 2, cmdArgs = TRUE) would
   not.

 o commandArgs(excludeReserved = TRUE) failed to drop reserved arguments of
   type --<key>=<value>, e.g. --encoding=ASCII.
 
 
Version: 1.29.7 [2014-01-27]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added trial version of the CmdArgsFunction class.
 
 
Version: 1.29.6 [2014-01-27]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added cmdArgsCall() for easy calling of functions from the command line,
   e.g. Rscript -e R.utils::cmdArgsCall(rnorm) n=4.
 
 
Version: 1.29.5 [2014-01-27]

NEW FEATURES:

 o doCall() gained argument 'envir', which also means that the new behavior is
   to evaluate the call within the calling frame.  Also, doCall() now accepts 
   call a function object in addition to a name of a function.
 
 
Version: 1.29.4 [2014-01-26]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'unique' to cmdArgs().

 o Now commandArgs(asValues = TRUE) returns no-named arguments as a list
   element with the argument as the value and with a "" name. For instance, in
   the past one would get list(R = NA, a = "1", noname = NA) whereas now one
   gets list("R", a = "1", "noname").

BUG FIXES:

 o Now attachLocally() no longer tries to attach elements with an empty name,
   e.g. list(a = 1, 2).  Previously it gave an error. Added a package system
   test for attachLocally().
 
 
Version: 1.29.3 [2014-01-19]

NEW FEATURES:

 o CONSISTENCY: Now createLink(..., method = "windows-shortcut") returns the
   path/pathname to the link (and not the target) just like it does for the
   other types of file links.  By link we here mean the path/pathname without
   the *.lnk extension.

SOFTWARE QUALITY:

 o ROBUSTNESS: Added package system tests for createLink().
 
 
Version: 1.29.2 [2014-01-12]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Now Arguments$getCharacters() preserves attributes.  Also, made argument
   'useNames' defaults to TRUE.

 o Added [() for GenericSummary.
 
 
Version: 1.29.1 [2014-01-10]

NEW FEATURES:

 o Added argument 'what' to Sys.readlink2(), where what = "corrected" makes
   sure to return the proper target path (not just the one relative to where
   the link lives).
 
 
Version: 1.29.0 [2014-01-07]

 o The following file I/O methods follows symbolic links (also on Windows)
   and returns information based on the target file/directory (rather than
   the link itself): fileAccess(), file.info2(), isDirectory(), isFile()
   and lastModified().

 o Added file.info2() for retrieving file information such that symbolic
   file links are also acknowledged on Windows.

 o Added Sys.readlink2() for reading symbolic file links also on Windows.

 o removeDirectory() can now be used to remove symbolic directory links
   (also on Windows where neither file.remove() nor unlink() work).
   The target directory will never be removed.

 o BUG FIX: renameFile() would give an error on directories.

 o Added package system tests for copyFile() and renameFile().

 o ROBUSTNESS: createLink() will no longer try to create Windows file
   links on non-Windows platforms.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Updated a shell() calls that assume the Windows command
   interpreter to explicitly specify shell = Sys.getenv("COMSPEC").
 
 
Version: 1.28.6 [2014-01-06]

 o Added argument 'skip' (in addition to existing 'overwrite') to copyFile()
   to allow for better control on how to handle existing destination files.
   For backward compatibilities, it defaults to FALSE, but may be changed
   to skip = !overwrite in a future version.  Furthermore, copyFile() now
   passes (known) arguments '...' to base::file.copy() making it possible
   to copy with or without file permissions etc.  Thanks Taku Tokuyasu (UCSF)
   for reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.28.5 [2013-12-15]

 o Now argument 'asGString' for Arguments$getCharacters() defaults to
   getOption("Arguments$getCharacters/args/asGString", TRUE).  This makes
   it possible to disable this feature, even when it is not possible to
   directly pass that argument.  This will also make it possible to
   set the default to FALSE in the future (instead of TRUE as today).

 o Added argument 'inherits' to evaluate() for GString.  Default
   is TRUE for backward compatibility.
 
 
Version: 1.28.4 [2013-11-20]

 o Minor updates to NAMESPACE file.
 
 
Version: 1.28.3 [2013-11-15]

 o Added method c() for GenericSummary.
 
 
Version: 1.28.2 [2013-11-15]

 o CLEANUP: Arguments$getNumerics(NA, range = c(0,1)) no longer gives
   warnings on "no non-missing arguments to min()" etc.
 
 
Version: 1.28.1 [2013-10-30]

 o BUG FIX: System$getMappedDrivesOnWindows() failed to return the
   proper path for 'net use' mounted drives, iff the path contained
   spaces.
 
 
Version: 1.28.0 [2013-10-20]

 o CLEANUP: Removed a few non-used internal objects.

 o Forgot to declare enterf() for Verbose as an S3 method.
 
 
Version: 1.27.6 [2013-10-13]

 o CLEANUP: Some methods had to attach 'R.utils' in the past in order
   to work properly.  These are no longer attaching 'R.utils':
   copyDirectory(), createLink(), createWindowsShortcut(),  downloadFile(),
   installPackages(), removeDirectory(), and sourceDirectory().

 o Bumped up package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.27.5 [2013-10-07]

 o CLEANUP: Now explicitly importing only what is needed in NAMESPACE.

 o CLEANUP: Dropped obsolete autoload():s.

 o ROBUSTNESS: The overriding of getOption() to become a generic
   function does now call base::getOption() in the default, instead
   of copy the latter.

 o Bumped up package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.27.4 [2013-09-28]

 o Now argument 'recursive' of listDirectory() can also specify the
   maximum recursive depth, e.g listDirectory(..., recursive = 5L).

 o Now the 'R.utils' Package object is also available when the
   package is only loaded (but not attached).
 
 
Version: 1.27.3 [2013-09-20]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Forgot to import R.methodsS3::appendVarArgs().
 
 
Version: 1.27.2 [2013-09-15]

 o TYPO: An error message of dimNA<-() was referring to 'files'
   rather than to 'elements'.
 
 
Version: 1.27.1 [2013-09-10]

 o BUG FIX: commandArgs(asValues = TRUE) failed to set the value of
   the very last argument to TRUE if it was a flag, e.g.
   'R --args --bar'.  Thanks to Stijn van Dongen at EMBL-EBI in
   Cambridge/Hinxton, UK for reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.27.0 [2013-08-30]

 o Added use() for easy attaching/loading and automatic installation
   of packages.

 o Now isPackageInstalled() suppresses warnings.
 
 
Version: 1.26.4 [2013-08-27]

 o CLEANUP: Arguments$getReadablePathnames(files, paths = NULL) no longer
   warns about "rep(paths, length.out = nbrOfFiles) : 'x' is NULL so
   the result will be NULL" if length(files) > 0.

 o CLEANUP: Package no longer utilizes ':::'.

 o DOCUMENTATION: Help for installPackages() was missing.  Thanks
   Gabor Grothendieck for reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.26.3 [2013-08-20]

 o Forgot to declare default inherits() as an S3 method.
 
 
Version: 1.26.2 [2013-07-30]

 o ROBUSTNESS/BUG FIX: System$findGhostscript() could still
   give errors.  Completely rewrote how Ghostscripts is searched.
   On Windows, environment variable 'GSC' is now also searched.
   Thanks to Brian Ripley for the feedback.
 
 
Version: 1.26.1 [2013-07-29]

 o BUG FIX: System$findGhostscript() would give "Error in pathname
   [sapply(pathname, FUN = isFile)]: invalid subscript type 'list'"
   if no device was found.
 
 
Version: 1.26.0 [2013-07-27]

 o Added tempvar() for creating non-existing temporary variables.

 o Added enterf() to Verbose, which is an sprintf-like enter().

 o Now System$findGhostscript() returns system variable 'R_GSCMD' if
   set and it refers to an existing executable (and unless force = TRUE).
   It then checks with Sys.which().  On Windows, it finally searches
   for 'gswin64c.exe' and 'gswin32c.exe' on known locations.  Added
   arguments 'firstOnly' and 'force'.

 o Now getAbsolutePath() shortens paths if possible, e.g. "C:/foo/.."
   becomes "C:/".

 o Added argument 'skip' to gzip() and gunzip().

 o BUG FIX: gunzip() would ignore argument 'overwrite'.

 o BUG FIX: filePath("C:/foo/..") returned "C:", which should be "C:/".
 
 
Version: 1.25.3 [2013-07-27]

 o BUG FIX: findSourceTraceback() would give an error "Unknown class of
   'srcfile': character" for source(..., keep.source = FALSE) in recent
   R devel and R v3.0.1 patched.  Thanks Duncan Murdoch for the report.
 
 
Version: 1.25.2 [2013-07-03]

 o Now installPackages() may also install from https URLs.

 o Now more methods can be used without attaching ("loading") the
   package: copyFile(), copyDirectory(), removeDirectory(), createLink(),
   createWindowsShortcut(), downloadFile(), sourceDirectory(), and
   installPackages(), e.g. R.utils::downloadFile().

 o Now touchFile() utilizes base::Sys.setFileTime(), iff available.
 
 
Version: 1.25.1 [2013-07-01]

 o Bumped up package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.25.0 [2013-06-27]

 o UPDATE: Now gzip()/gunzip() returns the output file (was number
   of output bytes processed which are now returned as an attribute).

 o Added argument 'temporary' to gzip()/gunzip().

 o Added isGzipped() for testing whether a file is gzipped or not.
 
 
Version: 1.24.4 [2013-06-17]

 o Now argument 'dims' of extract() can also be dimension names.
 
 
Version: 1.24.3 [2013-05-25]

 o Minor speedups by replacing rm() calls with NULL assignments.

 o SPEEDUP: readTable() no longer calls gc().
 
 
Version: 1.24.2 [2013-05-20]

 o CRAN POLICY: Now all Rd \usage{} lines are at most 90 characters long.

 o CRAN POLICY: Now all Rd example lines are at most 100 characters long.
 
 
Version: 1.24.1 [2013-05-13]

 o The workaround needed by isDirectory() due to a bug in
   file.info() is now applied only for R (< 3.0.2), since the
   bug was been fixed in R 3.0.1 patched (PR#15302).
 
 
Version: 1.24.0 [2013-04-18]

 o Several methods now output messages and verbose output
   to standard error (instead of standard output), including
   addFinalizerToLast(), filePath(), patchCode(), readWindowsShellLink(),
   readWindowsShortcut(), and loadAnywhere() for Settings.
 
 
Version: 1.23.4 [2013-04-15]

 o BUG FIX: capitalize()/decapitalize() would return "NANA" for
   missing values.  Reported by Liviu Andronic.
 
 
Version: 1.23.3 [2013-03-29]

 o BUG FIX: downloadFile('https://...') did not work if 'username'
   or 'password' was NULL.
 
 
Version: 1.23.2 [2013-03-22]

 o BUG FIX: Previous update caused commandArgs(..., adhoc = TRUE)
   to coerce 'T' and 'F' to logicals TRUE and FALSE.  They are
   now preserved as character string.
 
 
Version: 1.23.1 [2013-03-21]

 o Now commandArgs(..., adhoc = TRUE) utilizes utils::type.convert().
 
 
Version: 1.23.0 [2013-03-20]

 o Added ecget() which is like eget() with the default value
   corresponding to the command-line argument.

 o Added eget() for retrieving a single variable, with a
   fallback to a default value, e.g. n <- eget(n = 42).

 o Added support for cmdArg(n = 42) as an alias to cmdArg("n", 42).
 
 
Version: 1.22.0 [2013-03-14]

 o Added cmdArg() for retrieving a single command line argument
   with a default value and type, e.g. n <- cmdArg("n", 42).
 
 
Version: 1.21.2 [2013-03-11]

 o Bumped up package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.21.1 [2013-03-08]

 o Added an Authors@R field to the DESCRIPTION.
 
 
Version: 1.21.0 [2013-03-07]

 o Major improvement of commandArgs().  For instance, now it never
   consider arguments after '--args' to be reserved or environment
   variable arguments; they are always user arguments.  It is also
   doing a better job on interpreting -*<key>=<value> arguments;
   previously it could happen that it would split the <value>.
   Added systems test for commandArgs() and cmdArgs().
 
 
Version: 1.20.2 [2013-03-07]

 o Now argument 'eps' for isZero() may also be a character string
   specifying either "double.eps" or "single.eps".
 
 
Version: 1.20.1 [2013-03-04]

 o DOCUMENTATION: Updated the help usage section for all static methods.
 
 
Version: 1.20.0 [2013-02-24]

 o Added cmdArgs() which is short for R.utils::commandArgs(asValues = TRUE,
   adhoc = TRUE, unique = TRUE, excludeReserved = TRUE, ...)[-1L].

 o Now it is possible to specify default arguments in commandArgs().
   In addition, if asValues = TRUE, then the values of the parsed
   command-line arguments will be coerced to the data type of the
   default ones if they share names.  If adhoc = TRUE, arguments will
   be coerced to numerics unless the result is NA.

 o For conveniency, getAbsolutePath() and getRelativePath() returns
   the same pathname if it is a URL.

 o Added gstring() and gcat().

 o Now it is possible to escape the sed-like search replace format
   for GString:s via quoting, e.g. ${'R.rsp/HttpDaemon/RspVersion'} .

 o BUG FIX: getParent() and filePath() as well as System$mapDriveOnWindows()
   and System$unmapDriveOnWindows() did not handle paths with a lower case
   Windows drive letter.  Oddly, it is only now that we have received
   an single report (on a Windows 7 system) that such getwd() may return
   such drive letters, e.g. 'c:/path/' instead of 'C:/path/'.

 o BUG FIX: evaluate(..., where = "parent") for GString would result
   in an endless loop.

 o BUG FIX: displayCode(code) incorrectly processed 'code' as GString:s.
 
 
Version: 1.19.5 [2013-01-11]

 o BUG FIX: Specifying argument 'version' to isPackageLoaded() would give
   "Error: 'manglePackageName' is defunct." in recent versions of R.
   Thanks to Brian Ripley (R core) for reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.19.4 [2013-01-07]

 o Now '.Last.lib' is exported.

 o Bumped up package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.19.3 [2012-12-19]

 o Utilizing new startupMessage() of R.oo.
 
 
Version: 1.19.2 [2012-12-18]

 o R CMD check for R devel no longer gives a NOTE on attach().
 
 
Version: 1.19.1 [2012-12-02]

 o CLEANUP: R CMD check no longer warns on global assignments.

 o BUG FIX: Arguments$getIndices(x, max = 0, disallow = "NaN") where 'x'
   contains only NA_integer_, would give "Exception: Argument 'x' is
   of length 1 although the range ([0,0]) implies that is should be
   empty." although it should return 'x' as is.
 
 
Version: 1.19.0 [2012-11-29]

 o CLEANUP: Dropped lapply() for MultiVerbose.

 o Added as.list() to MultiVerbose.
 
 
Version: 1.18.4 [2012-11-21]

 o Now declaring all S3 methods in the namespace.
 
 
Version: 1.18.3 [2012-11-06]

 o BUG FIX: queryRCmdCheck() did not detect "tests" evidences when
   'R CMD check' was testing multiple architectures.
 
 
Version: 1.18.2 [2012-11-04]

 o CLEANUP: Replaced all whichVector() with which(), because the
   latter is now the fastest again.

 o CLEANUP: Dropped pre-R 2.3.0 patch of as.character.hexmode().

 o CLEANUP: Dropped pre-R 2.5.0 patch of Sys.setenv().

 o BUG FIX: The 'columnClasses' header field created by writeDataFrame()
   would contain "integer" for "factor":s.  Now using class(x)[1] instead
   of storage.mode(x) to infer column classes.

 o BUG FIX: Despite documented header fields 'createdBy' and 'createdOn'
   to be ignored if NULL, they did set the corresponding' element in
   'header' argument to NULL if they were NULL.
 
 
Version: 1.18.1 [2012-10-31]

 o Now gzip()/gunzip()/bunzip2() creates the directory of destination
   pathname 'destfile', iff missing.
 
 
Version: 1.18.0 [2012-10-29]

 o Added trial version of readWindowsShellLink(), which eventually
   will replace readWindowsShortcut().

 o GENERALIZATION: Now filePath() does a better job reading Windows
   Shell Links/Windows Shortcut (*.lnk) files.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now createWindowsShortcut() uses an improved validation
   strategy of the created *.lnk file.
 
 
Version: 1.17.4 [2012-10-26]

 o BUG FIX: example(createWindowsShortcut) could throw an error on
   some systems.  The exact reason for this is unknown, so for now
   it's instead generating a warning rather that an error.
 
 
Version: 1.17.3 [2012-10-26]

 o RECOMMENDATION: Since R v2.11.0, you should use base::which() instead
   of whichVector(), which now help("whichVector") also explains.  Also,
   whichVector() was removed from the help index of the package.

 o CRAN POLICY: Made the examples run faster for R CMD check.
 
 
Version: 1.17.2 [2012-10-21]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Added argument 'maxTries' to Arguments$getWritablePathname()
   to have the method try to create missing directories multiple times
   before giving up.  This also means that it will take a longer for
   this method to fail creating a directory.

 o Now Arguments$getWritablePathname() gives a more informative error
   if failed, analogously to Arguments$getReadablePathname().
 
 
Version: 1.17.1 [2012-10-19]

 o mkdirs(path) could generate a warning if the path was created
   by another process as a race condition.  Now it always checks to
   see if the directory already exists just before trying to create
   the directory.
 
 
Version: 1.17.0 [2012-10-16]

 o Moved Arguments$getFilename() from R.filesets to R.utils.
   Added Rd help.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Bumped up package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.16.6 [2012-10-09]

 o BUG FIX: evalWithTimeout() would not reset the time limits after
   returning.  Thanks to Gregory Ryslik at Yale University for
   reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.16.5 [2012-09-26]

 o Added argument 'skip' to createLink().

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now createLink(..., overwrite = TRUE) will try to undo
   the overwrite, iff it failed to create the new link.

 o BUG FIX: createLink(..., overwrite = TRUE) would give an error saying
   "file already exists" (iff that is true) when it tries to create
   a "unix-symlink" link.  Thanks Taku Tokuyasu at UCSF for the report.
 
 
Version: 1.16.4 [2012-09-24]

 o BUG FIX: Arguments$getReadablePath(..., mustExist = FALSE) did not work.
 
 
Version: 1.16.3 [2012-09-21]

 o Now insert() silently expands 'values' to be of the same length
   as 'ats', iff length(values) == 1.

 o toCamelCase(..., preserveSameCase = TRUE) makes all-upper-case
   words into same-case words, e.g. toCamelCase("HTML View",
   preserveSameCase = TRUE) outputs "htmlView" (not "hTMLView").
   Added system tests for toCamelCase().
 
 
Version: 1.16.2 [2012-09-12]

 o ROBUSTNESS/CRAN POLICY: moveInSearchPath() no longer calls
   .Internal(detach(...)) but instead base::detach() in such a
   way that neither detach hooks nor .Last.lib() are called.
 
 
Version: 1.16.1 [2012-09-07]

 o Now createLink() also supports targets with '~' in the path.

 o ROBUSTNESS: createLink(target = "C:/") would try to create a link with
   name "C:", which is not valid resulting is the somewhat confusing
   error on "cannot symlink 'S:' to 'S:', reason 'Access is denied'".
   Now it instead throws "Cannot infer a valid link name from argument
   'target': C:/".

 o ROBUSTNESS/BUG FIX: On Windows, it could happen that createLink()
   would generate a zero-size link file that did not link to the target
   as a result of a failed file.symlink().  This is now tested for such
   that if an invalid link file was created, it is removed again.
 
 
Version: 1.16.0 [2012-07-11]

 o CLEANUP: Dropped the graphics device related functions that
   were moved to R.devices.

 o System$findGraphicsDevice() no longer tries to create a PNG
   device using png2(), because that has now moved to R.devices.

 o Updated package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.15.1 [2012-06-16]

 o Now package only imports/no longer depends on the 'utils' package.
   This means that all packages that depends on 'R.utils' for loading
   'utils' for them need to explicitly load it themselves.
 
 
Version: 1.15.0 [2012-05-22]

 o Added systemR() for launching an external R process.

 o Package no longer loads (via a DESCRIPTION Depends) the
   R.devices package, because that would cause a circular
   package dependency.  Instead, we're keeping the graphical
   device functions here until all reverse dependent packages
   have been set to explicitly use R.devices.
 
 
Version: 1.14.0 [2012-05-01]

 o Copied all functions related to graphics devices to new package
   R.devices (v2.1.1), which is now on CRAN.  For backward
   compatibility, the R.utils package will for now depend and
   hence load the R.devices package.
 
 
Version: 1.13.1 [2012-04-16]

 o Added findFiles(), which orginates from the affxparser package.
 
 
Version: 1.13.0 [2012-04-07]

 o Added toBMP() and toTIFF().
 
 
Version: 1.12.2 [2012-04-05]

 o Now it is possible to have devEval() rename incompletely generated
   image files, by using argument onIncomplete = "rename".  This will simplify
   troubleshooting.  The default is still to remove incomplete files.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Updated package dependencies.
 
 
Version: 1.12.1 [2012-03-20]

 o BUG FIX: .onAttach() would try to call getMessage(ex) on an 'error'
   if there was a problem adding a finalizer, resulting in "no applicable
   method for 'getMessage' applied to an object of class "c('simpleError',
   'error', 'condition')".  Now using 'ex$message' instead.
 
 
Version: 1.12.0 [2012-03-08]

 o CRAN POLICY: Renamed remove() for FileProgressBar to cleanup(),
   because otherwise it would be inevitable to create an internal
   copy of base::remove() which contains an .Internal() call.
   This move may break existing code that calls remove() on an
   FileProgressBar object.

 o CRAN POLICY: Removed all internal copies of 'base' and 'utils'
   functions that have .Internal() calls.

 o CLEANUP: Removed relibrary() function, because it has not worked
   properly since R introduced namespaces, which is several years.
 
 
Version: 1.11.2 [2012-02-29]

 o CRAN POLICY: Now capture() for Verbose uses withVisible() instead
   of an .Internal(eval.with.vis()) call.
 
 
Version: 1.11.1 [2012-02-28]

 o ROBUSTNESS: The creation of image files by devEval() is now
   close to being "atomic".  That is, if the code for plotting the
   figure is interrupted (e.g. by a user interrupt or an error),
   then any created image file is removed.  This avoids leaving
   incomplete/blank image files behind.
 
 
Version: 1.11.0 [2012-02-26]

 o GENERALIZATION: Now devOptions() accepts passing a device function
   in addition a string, e.g. devOptions(png) and devOptions("png").

 o Added argument 'scale' to devNew().

 o BUG FIX: Before devNew(..., aspectRatio = 1) would ignore
   devOptions(...)$width if neither argument 'width' nor 'height'
   was given.
 
 
Version: 1.10.0 [2012-02-23]

 o Added swapXY() and draw() for 'density' objects.  Used to be
   in the aroma.core package.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Package now explicitly depends on 'utils' and
   'R.methodsS3'. Before it relied on 'R.oo' to load those.
 
 
Version: 1.9.11 [2012-01-17]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now System$findGraphicsDevice() not only assert that
   an image file is generated, but also that its filesize is non-zero.
   This avoids returning a device that generates empty image files.
   Also updated the time out to 10 secs (was 30 secs).
 
 
Version: 1.9.10 [2012-01-12]

 o CLEANUP: reassignInPackage() calls function that are considered
   "unsafe" by the new CRAN policies, i.e. unlockBinding() and
   assignInNamespace().  However, we still wish to keep this method
   available to advanced users.  In order to avoid getting NOTEs
   from R CMD check, we have "hidden" those unsafe function calls.
 
 
Version: 1.9.9 [2012-01-11]

 o BUG FIX: writeRaw() for Verbose would throw error "Trying to coerce
   more than one character string to a GString, which is not supported."
   iff passing a vector of strings.
 
 
Version: 1.9.8 [2011-12-30]

 o DOCUMENTATION: The help now explains that evalWithTimeout(readline())
   does not throw a timeout exception until after readline() returns.
 
 
Version: 1.9.7 [2011-12-16]

 o BUG FIX: evalWithTimeout() would not detect timeouts in R sessions
   that use a non-English locale.

 o BUG FIX: Now evalWithTimeout(..., onTimeout = "silent") works.  Thanks
   Nicholas Beeton (Univ. of Tasmania, Australia) for reporting on this.
 
 
Version: 1.9.6 [2011-11-23]

 o BUG FIX: evalCapture() with argument 'envir' defaulting to parent.frame()
   would not be evaluated in the parent frame as it should.  It appears
   that the internal capture.output() prevents this from happening, unless
   argument 'envir' is explictly evaluated within evalCapture().
 
 
Version: 1.9.5 [2011-11-19]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now parse() and as.character() handles "empty" GString:s.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now GString() asserts that it only holds one string.
 
 
Version: 1.9.4 [2011-11-15]

 o SPEEDUP: Now Arguments$getCharacters(s, asGString = TRUE) is much
   faster for elements of 's' that are non-GStrings.  For long
   character vectors the speedup is 100-200x times.

 o SPEEDUP: Now as.character() and parse() for GString return
   faster if the string is a plain string without markup etc.
   This made as.character() about 10-15 times faster.
 
 
Version: 1.9.3 [2011-11-07]

 o Added 'quarts' to the list of (possible) devices for devOptions().

 o BUG FIX: devOptions() assumed that all devices exist on
   all platforms, causing it to give an error on some.
 
 
Version: 1.9.2 [2011-11-06]

 o Added evalCapture() for evaluating an expression and
   capturing its deparsed code and/or output.
 
 
Version: 1.9.1 [2011-11-05]

 o Added toEPS(), toPDF(), toPNG() and toSVG().

 o Added devOptions().

 o Added default 'width' and 'height' values to eps().

 o Turned png2() and jpeg2() into plain functions without a generic.
   This is consistent with how eps() is defined.

 o GENERALIZATION: Now the default 'width' is inferred from
   devOptions() if needed.

 o DOCUMENTATION: Added an example to help(devEval).
 
 
Version: 1.9.0 [2011-11-03]

 o Added queryRCmdCheck(), which retrieves the status of 'R CMD check',
   iff it is running.
 
 
Version: 1.8.8 [2011-11-01]

 o Added argument 'dims' to extract() for arrays.  Also, argument 'drop'
   was moved to the end.
 
 
Version: 1.8.7 [2011-11-01]

 o CLEANUP: Fixed a R CMD check NOTE that would show up in R v2.15.0 devel.
 
 
Version: 1.8.6 [2011-10-31]

 o Added argument 'field' to devEval().
 
 
Version: 1.8.5 [2011-10-16]

 o CORRECTION: Arguments$getNumerics(c(Inf), disallow = "Inf") would report
   that it contains "NA" instead of "Inf" values.
 
 
Version: 1.8.4 [2011-10-08]

 o Now the default for argument 'methods' of createLink() can be set
   via option "createLink/args/methods".
 
 
Version: 1.8.3 [2011-09-30]

 o Added installPackages() for installing R packages by names or URLs.
   This method was previously in the hbLite.R script of braju.com.
 
 
Version: 1.8.2 [2011-09-24]

 o devNew() no longer gives a warning about argument 'aspectRatio' is
   specified when both or neither of 'width' and 'height' are given,
   and 'aspectRatio' is 1.

 o Internal readDWord() and readQWord() of readWindowsShortcut() would
   try read 4- and 8-byte integers as non-signed, which is not supported
   by base::readBin() and hence instead read as signed integers.
   Starting with R v2.13.1 this would generate a lot of warnings.
 
 
Version: 1.8.1 [2011-09-19]

 o Now System$mapDriveOnWindows(), System$unmapDriveOnWindows(), and
   System$getMappedDrivesOnWindows() also handles Windows UNC paths
   (i.e. network resource).  This was triggered by a discussion with
   Keith Jewell at Campden BRI Group, UK.

 o WORKAROUND: isDirectory("C:/") would not return TRUE due to a
   bug in file.info("C:/") causing it to return NAs.

 o Now attachLocally() returns a character vector also of length
   zero.  Before NULL was returned.
 
 
Version: 1.8.0 [2011-09-14]

 o Added writeDataFrame().

 o ROBUSTNESS: Added sanity checks to example(capitalize).

 o DOCUMENTATION: Improved example(commandArgs).

 o BUG FIX: commandArgs() would not handle '-<key> <value>' and
   '--<key> <value>' properly in all cases.
 
 
Version: 1.7.8 [2011-07-24]

 o Undoing v1.7.7 to again exports '.conflicts.OK' in order to avoid
   several warnings when loading package.
 
 
Version: 1.7.7 [2011-07-23]

 o '.conflicts.OK' is no longer exported, because it would cause
   other "downstream" packages to generate a WARNING in R CMD check.
 
 
Version: 1.7.6 [2011-04-30]

 o Added isReplicated() and replicates() for identifying entries
   in a vector that are non-unique.  Corresponding isSingle() and
   singles() identifies entries that exists only once.
 
 
Version: 1.7.5 [2011-04-12]

 o Now devEval("jpg", ...) is recognized as devEval("jpeg", ...).
 
 
Version: 1.7.4 [2011-04-03]

 o Now hpaste(..., sep = " ", maxHead = Inf) corresponds to
   paste(..., sep = " ", collapse = ", ").  Added to example.
 
 
Version: 1.7.3 [2011-04-02]

 o Added hpaste() for human-readable pasting, e.g. "1, 2, 3, ..., 10".

 o Now argument 'force' of devEval() defaults to
   getOption("devEval/args/force", TRUE).
 
 
Version: 1.7.2 [2011-03-18]

 o Now argument 'path' of devEval() defaults to
   getOption("devEval/args/path", "figures/").

 o Now devEval() does a better job of "cleaning up" 'name' and 'tags'.
 
 
Version: 1.7.1 [2011-03-18]

 o devNew() gained option 'devNew/args/par', which can be used to specify
   the default graphical parameters for devNew().  Any additional
   parameters passed via argument 'par' will override such default ones,
   if both specifies the same parameter.

 o The automatic archiving of devEval() is not considered unless
   the R.archive package is loaded, regardless of option settings.

 o DOCUMENTATION: The title of help(devDone) was incorrect.
 
 
Version: 1.7.0 [2011-03-10]

 o Now argument 'aspectRatio' of devNew() defaults to 1 (not NULL).

 o Added setOption(), the "set version" of getOption().

 o Added env() for creating an environment and evaluating an
   expression inside of it in one go.

 o Added argument 'path' to sourceTo().

 o REPRODUCIBLE RESEARCH: Now devEval() archives any generated
   image files if R.archive option 'devEval' is TRUE.

 o BUG FIX: sourceTo() would not work for URLs.
 
 
Version: 1.6.6 [2011-03-08]

 o Now Arguments$getWritablePath(NULL) returns NULL without asserting
   write permission, which is analogue to how it is done with
   Arguments$getReadablePath(NULL).

 o Added argument 'timestamp' to printf() for Verbose so that the
   timestamp can be turned off/on explicitly as for cat().
 
 
Version: 1.6.5 [2011-03-03]

 o Added trial version of createFileAtomically() for creating files
   atomically, by writing to a temporary file which is then renamed.

 o Added trial versions of push-, popBackupFile() for backing up
   and restoring a file.

 o Added trial versions of push-, popTemporaryFile() for working
   toward a temporary file.

 o Added trial version of renameFile(), which to additional
   validation afterward.
 
 
Version: 1.6.4 [2011-02-28]

 o (Incomplete revision submitted to CRAN by mistake)
 
 
Version: 1.6.3 [2011-02-20]

 o Added argument 'par' to devNew() for applying graphical parameters
   at the same time as the device is opened, which is especially
   useful when using devEval().

 o Changed argument 'force' of devEval() to default to TRUE.
 
 
Version: 1.6.2 [2011-02-14]

 o Added trial version of devEval() for simple creation of images.

 o Added argument 'aspectRatio' to devNew(), which updates/sets
   the 'height' or the 'width', if the one of the other is not given.
 
 
Version: 1.6.1 [2011-02-01]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now using argument 'fixed' (not 'fix') in regexpr() calls.
 
 
Version: 1.6.0 [2010-12-07]

 o Added evalWithTimeout().
 
 
Version: 1.5.8 [2010-11-21]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now loadObject() asserts that the file exists.  If file
   doesn't exist, an informative error message is thrown.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now System$mapDriveOnWindows() does not give an error if
   trying to map the same drive letter to the same path multiple times.

 o TYPO: Static methods getVector() and getRegularExpression() of
   Arguments would report the incorrect argument name.

 o BUG FIX: System$mapDriveOnWindows() and System$unmapDriveOnWindows()
   did not work if the path contained a space.  Now the path is quoted.

 o BUG FIX: Now removeDirectory() also works for paths starting with
   a tilde (~).  The reason was/is that base::unlink() used internally
   does not support that.  We now use base::path.expand() first.
 
 
Version: 1.5.7 [2010-11-07]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now read/writeBinFragments() assert that argument 'idxs'
   contains only non-negative indices.

 o Added support to readBinFragments() to start reading from either the
   current file position (default; as previously) or from the start of
   the connection.  For backward compatibility, we keep the default to
   be relative to the current position, but this may change in the future.
 
 
Version: 1.5.6 [2010-11-03]

 o Added resample(), which contrary to sample() also works
   when drawing from a single element.
 
 
Version: 1.5.5 [2010-10-26]

 o Now argument 'which' to devSet() can be any object.  If not a
   single numeric or a single character string, then a checksum
   character string is generated using digest::digest(which).
 
 
Version: 1.5.4 [2010-10-13]

 o Now the 'link' argument of createLink() is inferred from the
   'target' argument if it is "." (or NULL).
 
 
Version: 1.5.3 [2010-09-29]

 o Added an example to help(findSourceTraceback).

 o BUG FIX: Each entry identified by findSourceTraceback()
   would be duplicated.
 
 
Version: 1.5.2 [2010-09-15]

 o fileAccess() no longer returns a named value if file.access() is used.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Added a more robust test for fileAccess(path, mode = 2)
   when 'path' is a directory.  Thanks Chao Chen at University of
   Chicago for reporting issues with this.

 o BUG FIX: Now fileAccess(..., mode = 1) only utilizes file.info()$exe
   if it is a file and on Windows, otherwise it relies on file.access().

 o DOCUMENTATION: Added an example to help(fileAccess).

 o MISC: Added support for readRdHelp(..., format = "text") in R < 2.10.0.
 
 
Version: 1.5.1 [2010-08-28]

 o Added readRdHelp() for locating and reading installed
   Rd help pages in various formats.

 o Now downloadFile() supports authentication, if 'wget' is
   available on the system.
 
 
Version: 1.5.0 [2010-08-04]

 o Added stext(), which previously was in the aroma.core package.
 
 
Version: 1.4.4 [2010-07-05]

 o Now arrayIndex() returns an @integer @matrix.

 o DOCUMENTATION: Now the help of arrayIndex() links to the
   new arrayInd() in the base package.
 
 
Version: 1.4.3 [2010-06-23]

 o BUG FIX: getAbsolutePath("//server/dir/") would incorrectly drop
   the initial double-slashes ('//') and return "/server/dir/".
   Thanks Richard Cotton at Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL), UK,
   for reporting this.
 
 
Version: 1.4.2 [2010-06-09]

 o Added printf(), as a convenient wrapper for cat(sprintf(...)).
 
 
Version: 1.4.1 [2010-05-26]

 o Added downloadFile() for safer and more convenient downloads.
 
 
Version: 1.4.0 [2010-03-24]

 o Now R.utils requires R v2.5.0 (circa 2007) or newer.  This
   is because there was a change in base::parse() from R v2.4.1
   and R v2.5.0.  See news for R.utils v0.9.3.

 o Added a NAMESPACE.
 
 
Version: 1.3.4 [2010-03-02]

 o Added alpha version of an onGarbageCollect() method.

 o BUG FIX: findSourceTraceback() stopped working; probably due to some
   recent updates in base::source().
 
 
Version: 1.3.3 [2010-01-25]

 o ROBUSTNESS: Added validation of argument 'range' in Arguments methods.
 
 
Version: 1.3.2 [2010-01-09]

 o sourceTo(..., modifiedOnly = FALSE) followed by a sourceTo(...,
   modifiedOnly = TRUE) will now work as expected.  Before you had to
   do at least one modifiedOnly = TRUE call before for it to work.

 o sourceTo() no longer gives a warning if there is a missing EOL.
 
 
Version: 1.3.1 [2010-01-08]

 o Added System$mapDriveOnWindows(), System$unmapDriveOnWindows(), and
   System$getMappedDrivesOnWindows() for associating drive letters
   with paths on Windows.
 
 
Version: 1.3.0 [2010-01-02]

 o Added argument 'max' to Arguments$getIndices().

 o Added Arguments$getInstanceOf(...).

 o Now Arguments$getWritablePath() and Arguments$getWritablePathname()
   throws an error is an NA file/directory is specified.

 o Now Arguments$getReadablePath() and Arguments$getReadablePathname()
   throws an error is an NA file/directory is specified, unless
   'mustExist' is FALSE.

 o Moved private GenericSummary from aroma.core to R.utils.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Now getParent(), getAbsolutePath() and getRelativePath()
   returns a (character) NA if the input is NA.

 o ROBUSTNESS: Any NA arguments in '...' to filePath(...) would be parsed
   as "NA" resulting in paths such as "NA/foo/NA" (just as file.path()
   does it).  Now a (character) NA is returned.

 o BUG FIX: The example(GString) code escaped a backslash incorrectly.

 o BUG FIX: Arguments$getCharacters(s) would return a *logical* instead
   of a *character* vector if 's' contained all NAs.

 o BUG FIX: Now isFile(NA) and isDirectory(NA) return FALSE.
   Before it gave an unexpected error.
 
 
Version: 1.2.6 [2009-12-19]

 o Added argument envir = new.env() to loadToEnv().
 
 
Version: 1.2.5 [2009-11-20]

 o If 'x' is a logical vector, Arguments$getIndices(x) will now return
   the same as if x <- which(x).
 
 
Version: 1.2.4 [2009-10-30]

 o ROBUSTIFICATION: Lowered the risk for saveObject() to leave an
   incomplete file due to say power failures etc.  This is done by
   first writing to a temporary file, which is then renamed.  If the
   temporary file already exists, an exception is thrown.

 o ROBUSTIFICATION: Now Arguments$getWritablePathname(path) validates
   that there is enough file permissions so that a file can be created
   in the 'path' directory.

 o CLEAN UP: On Windows Vista, createLink() produced a stderr message
   "You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation", when
   trying to use Windows 'mklink' command.  Those message are now silenced.
 
 
Version: 1.2.3 [2009-10-20]

 o Added findSourceTraceback(), which finds the pathnames of all
   files currently being source():ed.
 
 
Version: 1.2.2 [2009-10-16]

 o Some cleanup of Rd files to meet the stricter requirements.
 
 
Version: 1.2.1 [2009-10-03]

 o Added createLink().

 o Added createWindowsShortcut(). Currently it only works on Windows
   and version of Windows that runs VB scripts.
 
 
Version: 1.2.0 [2009-09-09]

 o Fixed broken/missing Rd links.
 
 
Version: 1.1.9 [2009-06-29]

 o Added argument 'useNames = FALSE' to getCharacters() of Arguments.
   For forgotten reasons, before (the default now) 'names' attributes
   were always dropped.  Now they can be kept, if wanted.

 o Added dimNA<-().
 
 
Version: 1.1.8 [2009-06-07]

 o BUG FIX: getParent(..., depth = 0) gave an error, instead of returning
   the input path.
 
 
Version: 1.1.7 [2009-05-30]

 o BUG FIX: Argument 'dThreshold' of less() for Verbose had to be named
   in order to be mapped.
 
 
Version: 1.1.6 [2009-05-19]

 o UPDATE: Now getEnvironment(), getRegularExpression(), and
   getReadablePathname() give clearer error messages if more the input
   contains more than one element.

 o Now Arguments$getWritablePathname() better explains why a file cannot
   be opened for creation/modification due to wrong file permissions.
 
 
Version: 1.1.5 [2009-05-16]

 o Changed argument 'asMode' for Arguments$getNumerics() to default to
   NULL instead of "numeric".  This will case the method to return integer
   if the input is integer, and double if the input is double.  The
   previous default was alway returning doubles, cf. notes on common
   misconception of how as.numeric() works.  In the case when the input
   is neither integer or double, the default is to coerce to doubles.
 
 
Version: 1.1.4 [2009-04-04]

 o Now getReadablePathname(..., mustExist = TRUE) of Arguments reports also
   the working directory if the a relative pathname is missing.

 o BUG FIX: getReadablePathname(..., mustExist = TRUE) of Arguments gave an
   internal error if the pathname was in the current directory and did
   not exist.
 
 
Version: 1.1.3 [2009-01-12]

 o Added isPackageInstalled().

 o FIXUP: There were some Rd warnings with the new R v2.9.0.
 
 
Version: 1.1.2 [2008-12-27]

 o Now getReadablePathname(..., mustExist = TRUE) and
   getWritablePathname(..., mkdirs = FALSE) of Arguments report which
   of the parent directories exists when the requested pathname is not
   found.  This will help troubleshooting missing pathnames.

 o Added removeDirectory() for a convenient and safe way to remove
   directories.

 o Added argument 'useNames' to insert(), which is now aware of names
   of the input object.

 o Added subplots() originating from (obsolete) R.graphics.
 
 
Version: 1.1.1 [2008-12-03]

 o Now getReadablePathname() and getWritablePathname() of Arguments,
   and sourceTo() use the more trusted fileAccess() instead of
   file.access() of 'base'.  This will hopefully solve some problems
   where these methods incorrectly gives an error reporting lack of
   file permissions; this could happen when some OSs mounted to other
   external file systems.

 o Added fileAccess() which is intended to give tries harder than
   file.access() to infer file permissions.

 o STABILITY: Added balance and sanity checks for exit() of Verbose.

 o Now gzip() and gunzip() removes the partially written output file if
   the process is interrupted.

 o BUG FIX: readWindowsShortcut() would not work with some Windows
   shortcut files linking to a Windows network file system and generated
   on Windows Vista.  Their "flags" in the file headers had more than
   the 8 known bits, which was reported as a file format error.  Although
   we don't know what these unknown bits are for, we now accept them
   quitely accepted so at least the known part of the file format is
   returned.

 o BUG FIX: filePath("\\\\shared/foo") would return "\\shared/foo".
 
 
Version: 1.1.0 [2008-10-24]

 o Now sourceDirectory() also searches for source files with extensions
   *.r, *.q, *.s, and *.S, cf. R manual 'Writing R Extensions'.
 
 
Version: 1.0.9 [2008-10-17]

 o BUG FIX: commandArgs() would 'Error in !attr(args, "isEnvVars") :
   invalid argument type' if both arguments excludeReserved = TRUE and
   excludeEnvVars = TRUE were used.
 
 
Version: 1.0.8 [2008-10-16]

 o Now devDone(which = 1) does nothing.  Before it gave an error.

 o BUG FIX: Argument 'type' of devNew() did not take function:s.
 
 
Version: 1.0.7 [2008-09-20]

 o Added mapToIntervals(), inAnyInterval(), and mergeIntervals().
 
 
Version: 1.0.6 [2008-09-08]

 o Now devNew() filters out arguments 'file' and 'filename' if the
   device is interactive.
 
 
Version: 1.0.5 [2008-08-04]

 o Now commandArgs(...) pass '...' to base::commandArgs() making it
   fully backward compatible.  It is also updated to recognize all
   R command line options as of R v2.7.1 and R v2.8.0 devel.
 
 
Version: 1.0.4 [2008-08-01]

 o Now sourceDirectory() is guaranteed to source directories and files
   in lexicographic order.

 o Added countLines() for counting number of lines in a text file.

 o Added several functions for extending the current functions dealing
   with devices.  All added functions can address a device by a label
   in addition to the standard device index.  The devGetLabel() and
   devSetLabel() gets and sets the label of a give device.  devList()
   lists the indices of existing device named by their labels, cf.
   dev.list().  The functions devSet() and devOff() work like
   dev.set() and dev.off() but accept labels as well.  Furthermore,
   devSet(idx) will open a device with index 'idx' if it does not
   exists, and devSet(label) a device with that label if not already
   opened.  The devIsOpen() checks if a device is open or not. The
   devDone() function calls devOff() except for screen devices.
 
 
Version: 1.0.3 [2008-07-10]

 o Added readBinFragments() and writeBinFragments() to read and write
   binary data scattered across a connection or a file.  These methods
   moved from the R.huge package.

 o Added intervalsToSeq(), which is bijective to seqToIntervals().

 o Added whichVector(), which is almost twice as fast which() for
   logical vectors, especially when there are no missing values.

 o IMPROVEMENT: Major speed up of seqToIntervals().

 o Added gzip().

 o Renamed inst/HISTORY to inst/NEWS according to new R standards.

 o CLEAN UP: as.character() for 'hexmode' is only added if missing.

 o BETA: Added (for now internal) toAsciiRegExprPattern().
 
 
Version: 1.0.2 [2008-03-31]

 o BUG FIX: If 'x' in insert(x, ...) had zero length, an
   "Error in from:to : NA/NaN argument" was thrown.
 
 
Version: 1.0.1 [2008-03-06]

 o BUG FIX: Regular expression pattern 'a-Z' is illegal on (at least)
   some locale, e.g. 'C' (where 'A-z' works). The only way to specify
   the ASCII alphabet is to list all characters explicitly, which we now
   do in all methods of the package.  See the r-devel thread
   "invalid regular expression '[a-Z]'" on 2008-03-05 for details.
 
 
Version: 1.0.0 [2008-02-26]

 o Added touchFile() for updating the timestamp of a file.

 o Added colClasses() for creating "colClasses" vectors.

 o Added isPackageLoaded().

 o The default filename for eps() had extension *.ps not *.eps.

 o Cleaned out empty sections from the Rd help pages.

 o Now the '...' arguments to Arguments$getVerbose() are passed
   to the constructor of Verbose.  This allows constructs such
   as Arguments$getVerbose(-10, timestamp = TRUE).

 o BUG FIX: When argument 'values' of insert() was a non-list
   its values were placed in a single-element list even when
   'ats' contained more than one element.  Should have been
   as.list() in those cases.
 
 
Version: 0.9.8 [2007-11-26]

 o Added copyFile() which safely copies a file by copying to a
   temporary file, which is then renamed.

 o Added isEof() for connections to test for "End of File".

 o Added reassignInPackage().

 o Added dataFrame(), which allocated a data frame of given size
   and column classes.

 o BUG FIX: writeRaw() of MultiVerbose returned a list of logicals.
   Now it returns TRUE (invisibly).
 
 
Version: 0.9.7 [2007-09-17]

 o BUG FIX/WORKAROUND: moveInSearchPath() would make the package
   environment loose  the 'path' attribute, which is for instance is
   needed by packageDescription().  This would in turn cause
   sessionInfo() to throw an error.  Now moveInSearchPath() makes sure
   to set all attributes on a moved package environment to what it
   used to be.
 
 
Version: 0.9.6 [2007-08-29]

 o Made documentation for saveObject() and loadObject() public.

 o Now the startup message when loading the package is generated with
   packageStartupMessage() so that it can be suppressed.

 o Added flush() to TextStatusBar.  Added flush() to example(TextStatusBar)
   so it displays correctly on Rgui on Windows.

 o Added bunzip2(), cf. gunzip().

 o Added argument 'remove' to gunzip().

 o BUG FIX: There was a typo in readWindowsShortcut() causing field
   'iconFilename' to potentially be invalid.  Thanks Tony Plate for
   reporting this.
 
 
Version: 0.9.5 [2007-06-09]

 o Updated code to pass the more strict R CMD check R v2.6.0.

 o BUG FIX: Used omit.na() instead of na.omit() in static method
   parseDebian() of System.
 
 
Version: 0.9.4 [2007-05-10]

 o BUG FIX: readTable() tried to access base::read.table() but that was
   moved to 'utils' as of R v2.5.0.
 
 
Version: 0.9.3 [2007-05-09]

 o BUG FIX: Using the R v2.4.x build of R.utils in R v2.5.0 gives
   "Error in parse.default(text = src) : 4 arguments passed to
   'parse' which requires 6".  This is because the internal call
   in base::parse() use different sets of arguments in R v2.4.1
   and R v2.5.0. The fix was to dynamically assign patch.default()
   when the package is loaded.
 
 
Version: 0.9.2 [2007-04-26]

 o Added trial version of a MultiVerbose class.  With this class it
   is possible to write verbose output via multiple Verbose objects
   through one MultiVerbose object, e.g. writing to standard output
   and to log file at the same time.
 
 
Version: 0.9.1 [2007-04-12]

 o BUG FIX: findGhostscript() would give error "paste(path0, collapse
   = ", ") : object "path0" not found" on Windows if Ghostscript was
   not found.  This error was caught by CRAN.  These problems have
   not been detected locally where Ghostscript is installed.
 
 
Version: 0.9.0 [2007-04-11]

 o BUG FIX: findGhostscript() of System would give error on
   "invalid subscript type" if non of the paths to be searched exist.
   This error was caught by CRAN.
 
 
Version: 0.8.9 [2007-04-07]

 o Removed never needed require(R.io) in openBrowser() for System.
 
 
Version: 0.8.8 [2007-04-03]

 o Added saveObject() and loadObject().

 o Removed the warning in getRelativePath() about "Cannot infer
   relative pathname, because the two pathnames are not refering
   to the same root/device".  The warning was more confusing than
   helpful.

 o BUG FIX: getAbsolutePath("C:/foo/", expandTilde = TRUE) would return
   "C://foo" and not "C:/foo".  Now the method also replace all
   multiple occurances of slashes with a single one.  This bug
   cause getRelativePath("C:/foo", "C:/") to return the wrong thing.

 o BUG FIX: toCamelCase(toCamelCase(s)) would not be equal to
   toCamelCase(s), but instead result in all lower case letters.

 o BUG FIX: Default value of argument 'format' of timestamp()
   was invalid.
 
 
Version: 0.8.7 [2007-03-24]

 o Added moveInSearchPath() to reshuffle the search path. Useful
   to change the order of packages after they have loaded.

 o Added toCamelCase() to convert strings.

 o Added loadToEnv() for loading saved data to a new environment.

 o The warning message on "cannot refer relative pathname" for
   getRelativePath() didn't paste the path resulting in a funny
   looking warning.
 
 
Version: 0.8.6 [2007-02-27]

 o An R.utils (v0.8.4) modified .Last() function saved in .RData from
   previous R sessions will be updated with the new modifactions
   according to R.utils v0.8.5.
 
 
Version: 0.8.5 [2007-02-26]

 o Added argument 'depth' to getParent().

 o BUG FIX:  Added tryCatch() and explicit check for finalizeSession().
   Otherwise if, under special circumstance, one might get the error
   'Error in .Last() : could not find function "finalizeSession"' when
   trying to quit R with quit().  Thanks Elizabeth Purdum at UC Berkeley
   for reporting this.

 o When running R v2.5.0, Sys.getenv() is used instead of deprecated
   Sys.putenv().
 
 
Version: 0.8.4 [2007-01-10]

 o Now System$findGhostscript() searches all 'Program Files' directories
   too, if on Windows.
 
 
Version: 0.8.3 [2006-11-10]

 o Added arrayIndex() to get the multi-dimensional index of an array
   from a one-dimensional index.
 
 
Version: 0.8.2 [2006-10-05]

 o Added popMessage() to TextStatusBar. See example().

 o Added argument 'modifiedOnly' to sourceTo() so that a file is only
   sourced if it has been modified since the last call.  Note that this
   argument is passed on by sourceDirectory() too.
 
 
Version: 0.8.1 [2006-09-16]

 o BUG FIX: sourceDirectory(..., onError = "error") would quietly ignore
   errors in source().

 o Added methods more() and less() to the Verbose class.
 
 
Version: 0.8.0 [2006-08-21]

 o Added isOpen() to check if there is another connection opened to
   a specific file.

 o pushState() of Verbose generated an unnecessary warning due to
   a typo.
 
 
Version: 0.7.9 [2006-07-17]

 o The capture() method in Verbose modified a text connection while it was
   still open; from R v2.4.0 this is not allowed.  Thanks Brian Ripley for
   pointing this out.
 
 
Version: 0.7.8 [2006-05-22]

 o Added the TextStatusBar class.
 
 
Version: 0.7.7 [2006-03-30]

 o The method list in the class-overview help page was missing
   for several classes.

 o Added as.double() to Verbose.

 o saveAnywhere() of Settings now returns (invisibly) the pathname
   where the settings were saved.
 
 
Version: 0.7.6 [2006-02-15]

 o Since the png2() and jpeg2() devices are in this package, the eps()
   device from R.graphics has been moved here for consistency.
 
 
Version: 0.7.5 [2006-02-09]

 o as.character.hexmode() is available in R v2.3.0 and forward.  Thus,
   the method is only added by this package for pre-R v2.3.0.
 
 
Version: 0.7.4 [2005-12-23]

 o Updated getHostname() and getUsername() in System to first try to
   find the details using Sys.info().  After that system environment
   variable and so on are checked.

 o Added argument 'expandTilde = FALSE' to getAbsolutePath() so
   that tildes (~) are expanded to there corresponding path.

 o Now relative paths handle tildes too.

 o Added optional automatic timestamping for the Verbose class.
   This is useful for Verbose objects writing to log files.

 o BUG FIX: Added protection against infinite loops in isFile(),
   where relative path is the same as the absolute path.
 
 
Version: 0.7.3 [2005-11-24]

 o Added extract() for arrays, amtrices and vectors.
 
 
Version: 0.7.2 [2005-11-22]

 o BUG FIX: filePath(..., expandLinks = "any") would return the relative
   link instead of the network pathname, even if there were no local
   pathname.

 o BUG FIX: Now using scan() instead of readLines() to parse header.
   This way the header can now also be quoted.

 o BUG FIX: Missing object 'ndim' in wrap(); should be 'ndims'.

 o BUG FIX: Sequences of length one was given as intervals by
 	seqToHumanReadable(), e.g. 10-10.

 o Static Arguments class: Added getReadablePathnames(). Now getCharacter()
   accepts vectors of length zero or one only.
 
 
Version: 0.7.1 [2005-11-12]

 o Added functions wrap() and unwrap() to reshape arrays (and matrices)
   by joining and splitting dimensions, respectively, and optionally
   by permuting dimensions too.  This is for instance useful when storing
   multidimensional arrays in tabular formats.
 
 
Version: 0.7.0 [2005-11-10]

 o Added trial version of readTable().  It extends the read.table()
   in two major ways.  First it allows you to specify colClasses as
   a column name to column class map.  Second, it allows you you to
   read any subset of rows, which substantially improves speed and
   decrease memory usage.  Use readTableIndex() to create a look-up
   index for rows of interest.

 o Added seqToIntervals(), which finds all contigous (integer) regions
   in a set of integers, cf. seqToHumanReadable().

 o BUG FIX: isDirectory() on a file would result in an infinite recursive
   loop to itself.

 o Added inifite recursive call detection to listDirectory().

 o Now sourceDirectory() returns the source files invisibly.

 o Gathered files recursively in sourceDirectory(), but it was not needed
   since sourceDirectory() itself is recursive.
 
 
Version: 0.6.3 [2005-10-26]

 o Renamed argument 'overwrite' in getWritablePathname() in Arguments to
   'mustNotExist'.  Renamed all 'mustExists' to 'mustExist' in all methods
   of class Arguments.
 
 
Version: 0.6.2 [2005-10-20]

 o Update loadAnywhere() for the Settings clas so that it works on
   objects too for which the default basename is the static basename.

 o BUG FIX: getLeaves() would give an error for empty Options objects.

 o BUG FIX: filePath(".") would return "".

 o BUG FIX: filePath("//shared/foo") would return "/shared/foo".
 
 
Version: 0.6.1 [2005-10-17]

 o BUG FIX: readWindowsShortcut() failed on some Network-only links.
 
 
Version: 0.6.0 [2005-09-24]

 o Now filePath() removes repeated '/' and '\\', except for network
   files such as \\server\foo\bar.

 o BUG FIX: Argument 'pager' of displayCode() did not support functions.

 o Updated Options class to make it easier for subclasses to retrieve
   options more easy.  This was needed for the future ROptions class
   to map to options().

 o BUG FIX: System$openBrowser() was broken, because startsWith() and
   endsWith() were missing.

 o Added trial version of jpeg2() and png2().
 
 
Version: 0.5.9 [2005-09-18]

 o Added static function findGraphicsDevice() to System.  The methods
   search for a working device among a list of potential ones.  This
   is for instance useful if it is known in advance that the PNG
   device is available (then the bitmap() device is an option).
 
 
Version: 0.5.8 [2005-09-06]

 o Added argument asGString = TRUE to the Verbose constructor.

 o Added remove() to FileProgressBar.

 o Replace argument 'gString' of getCharacters() to 'asGString', cf.
   Verbose class.

 o Now Arguments$getReadablePathname() follows Windows shortcut files.

 o BUG FIX: displayCode() was interpreting the code as GString:s.

 o Now making use of relative pathnames internally in copyDirectory().
   Sometimes relative pathnames will work when the absolute ones does
   not (because of missing file access rights).

 o BUG FIX: copyDirectory() would not return copied files if recursive == TRUE.

 o BUG FIX: Smart comments preceeded by TABs would not be recognized.

 o GString's parse() could return warning because it was incorrectly
   assumed that regexpr() did not return more than one value.
 
 
Version: 0.5.7 [2005-08-12]

 o Function filePath() returns NULL, if no arguments or only NULL
   arguments are passed to it.
 
 
Version: 0.5.6 [2005-08-02]

 o BUG FIX: splitByPattern() tried to access non-existing class Argument.

 o Arguments' getReadablePathname() no longer returns the absolute pathname
   by default. This is because on some systems the relative pathname can
   be queried wheras the absolute one may not be access due to missing
   file permissions.

 o isFile() and isDirectory() is now comparing to current working directory
   if no file information is available (due to missing file permissions);
   assumes that the current working directory always exists.

 o getParent() now returns NULL instead of "".

 o Added argument 'caseSensitive' to getRelativePath().

 o isAbsolutePath(NULL) returns FALSE.

 o mkdirs() tries to create directory with relative path if absolute
   path fails. This sometimes works when the file permission are missing.

 o Added argument 'code' to displayCode(). The function now also used
   file.show() to display the code.

 o Added isUrl() and hasUrlProtocol().

 o Added copyDirectory().

 o Added getEnvironment() and getRegularExpression() to Arguments.
 
 
Version: 0.5.5 [2005-07-21]

 o BUG FIX: Example illustrating Windows Shortcut methods tried to
   access 'HISTORY.lnk' and not 'HISTORY.LNK', which would fail on Unix.

 o BUG FIX: getCharacters() would not coerce Object:s correctly.

 o Now sourceDirectory() does 'chdir = FALSE' instead of 'chdir = FALSE'.

 o Now mkdirs() has an internal check for infinit-recursive calls.
 
 
Version: 0.5.4 [2005-07-19]

 o BUG FIX: If there are no files to source in a directory, and verbose
   is active, basefile() on NULL was called generating an error.

 o BUG FIX: sourceTo(..., chdir = TRUE) would generate an error. This
   would for instance make sourceDirectory() useless.
 
 
Version: 0.5.3 [2005-07-18]

 o Added resetWarnings() and splitByPattern().

 o Added summary() to class Verbose and a corresponding VComments tag.

 o Arguments$getCharacters() returned attribute 'names' too. Removed.

 o sourceDirectory() is no longer catching warnings in tryCatch(),
   because otherwise it will interrupt the call as if the warnings
   were errors.
 
 
Version: 0.5.2 [2005-06-27]

 o Added getRelativePath().

 o Added LComments which is a VComments class with different defaults.

 o Made SmartComments classes and methods non-static.

 o Escaping double quotes in VComments messages.
 
 
Version: 0.5.1 [2005-06-23]

 o Package passes R CMD check for R v2.1.0.

 o Added trial version of SmartComments and subclass VComments where
   the latter are R comments with a special format generating verbose
   output if source is first pre-processed by compile() method.
   If not preprocessed, they are just regular comments, adding no
   overhead in processing speed.  I can imagine to add, say, AComments
   that Asserts conditions at given test points in code; when code
   works, just source code without pre-processing them!

 o Now it is possible to set the default verbose level used by
   all Verbose methods if not explicitly given.

 o Now all Verbose messages are GString:ed. This makes VComments slim.
 
 
Version: 0.5.0 [2005-06-19]

 o Package passes R CMD check for R v2.1.0.

 o Now commandArgs() recognizes environment variables.

 o Added attachLocally().

 o When package is loaded, .Last() is modified so that 'onSessionExit'
   hooks are called when R finishes.

 o Added onSessionExit(), finalizeSession() and addFinalizerToLast().

 o Added callHooks().

 o Added the NullVerbose() class.

 o Moved (de-)capitalize() and seqToHumanReadable() from R.basic to here.

 o Added new GString class.

 o Added the Assert class.

 o Moved the System class from R.lang to this package. System was also
   cleaned out from several never used methods and fields.

 o Added filePath() together with file methods isFile(), isDirectory(),
   isAbsolutePath(), mkdirs(), lastModified(), and toUrl().

 o Moved sourceTo() from R.io to this package.

 o Moved doCall() from R.basic to this package.

 o Created the Options class.

 o Added several methods to the Verbose class. Also added support for
   indentation by enter() and exit() of Verbose.

 o Moved the Java and Verbose class from R.matlab to this package.
   This requires that this package is on CRAN before R.matlab is updated.

 o Moved the ProgressBar and FileProgressBar from the R.ui package,
   which then becomes more or less empty.

 o Created.
