When a new version of R is released there are numerous improvements, changes and bug fixes. These changes are listed in the NEWS file accompanying the R source. Their impact on the text is recorded here

This list is an edited version of the NEWS file showing those changes that affect the pages of the book. Comments are placed with square brackets. 




		CHANGES IN R VERSION 2.1.0


USER-VISIBLE CHANGES

    o	box plots {by boxplot() or bxp()} now have the median line three
	times the normal line width in order to distinguish it from the
	quartile ones.

[ All boxplots in the text will not show this. ]

....

    o	Reading text files with embedded "\" (as in Windows file names)
	may now need to use scan(* , allowEscapes = FALSE), see also below.


NEW FEATURES

....

    o	chisq.test() has a new argument 'rescale.p'.  It is now possible
	to simulate (slowly) the P value also in the 1D case
	(contributed by Rolf Turner).

[Chapter 9]


    o	choose(n,k) and lchoose(.) now also work for arbitrary (real) n
	in accordance with the general binomial theorem.  choose(*,k)
	is more accurate (and faster) for small k.

[Section 5.2.2]

....

    o	The cov() function in the non-Pearson cases now ranks data after
	removal of missing values, not before.	The pairwise-complete
	method should now be consistent with cor.test.	(Code
	contributed by Shigenobu Aoki.)

[Section 3.3]


....

    o	ecdf() now has jumps of the correct size (a multiple of 1/n)
	if there are ties.  (Wished by PR#7292).

[Section 9.3]

....

    o	legend() now accepts positioning by keyword, e.g. "topleft",
	and can put a title within the legend.	(Suggested by Elizabeth
	Purdom in PR#7400.)

[Section 3.4.6]

....

    o	pch="." now by default produces a rectangle at least 0.01" per
	side on high-resolution devices.  (It used to be one-pixel
	square even on high-resolution screens and Windows printers,
	but 1/72" on postscript() and pdf() devices.)  Additionally,
	the size is now scalable by 'cex'; see ?points and note that
	the details are subject to change.

[Table 3.7]

    o	pdf() now responds to the 'paper' and 'pagecentre'
	arguments.  The default value of 'paper' is "special"
	for backward-compatibility (this is different from the
	default for postscript()).

....

    o	plot.data.frame() tries harder to produce sensible plots for
	non-numeric data frames with one or two columns.
....

    o	New function RSiteSearch() to query R-related resources
	on-line (contributed by Jonathan Baron and Andy Liaw).

....

    o	scatter.smooth() and loess.smooth() now handle missing values
	in their inputs.

[Section 3.4.7]

....

    o	subset() now has a method for matrices, similar to that for
	data frames.

[Section 4.2.2]


....

    o	sunflowerplot() has new arguments 'col' and 'bg'.

[Help page for galton data set]

....

    o	New convenience wrappers write.csv() and write.csv2().

    o	There is a new version for write.table() which is implemented in C.
	For simple matrices and data frames this is several times
	faster than before, and uses negligible memory compared to the
	object size.

	The old version (which no longer coerces a matrix to a data
	frame and then back to a matrix) is available for now as
	write.table0().

....

INTERNATIONALIZATION
....

DEPRECATED & DEFUNCT

....

    o	The 'CRAN' argument to update.packages(), old.packages(),
	new.packages(), download.packages() and install.packages() is
	deprecated in favour of 'repos', which replaces it as a
	positional argument (so this is only relevant for calls with
	named args).

[Section 1.4.2, Appendix A]
....

INSTALLATION CHANGES

....


PACKAGE INSTALLATION CHANGES

....

    o	install.packages() and friends now accept a vector of URLs for
	'repos' or 'contriburl' and get the newest available version of
	a package from the first repository on the list in which it is
	found.	The argument 'CRAN' is still accepted, but deprecated.

	install.packages() on Unix can now install from local .tar.gz
	files via repos = NULL (as has long been done on Windows).

	install.packages() no longer asks if downloaded packages
	should be deleted: they will be deleted at the end of the
	session anyway (and can be deleted by the user at any time).

	If the repository provides the information, install.packages()
	will now accept the name of a package in a bundle.

	If 'pkgs' is omitted install.packages() will use a listbox to
	display the available packages, on suitable systems.

	'dependencies' can be a character vector to allow only some
	levels of dependencies (e.g. not "Suggests") to be requested.


    o	There is a new possible value update.packages(ask="graphics")
	that uses a widget to (de)select packages, on suitable systems.


....

    o	New function available.packages(), similar to CRAN.packages()
	but for use with multiple repositories.	 Both now only report
	packages whose R version requirements are met.

    o	update.packages() and old.packages() have a new option
	'checkBuilt' to allow packages installed under earlier
	versions of R to be updated.

....



BUG FIXES
....

    o	Using pch="" gave a square (pch=0)!  Now it is regarded as the
	same as NA, which was also undocumented but omits the point.


....