[datatable-help] Latest news

[Matthew Dowle]

v1.8.0 is currently held up from CRAN due to the merge() bug fix in R
2.15.0, see thread on r-devel. v1.8.0 tests that blank first suffix is
allowed and compares to merge.data.table. CRAN maintainers have also
asked me to reduce the frequency of revisions to CRAN going forward.

So, in the meantime bug fixes and feature requests continue to be added
to 1.8.0 on R-Forge. For those that have recently joined this list,
please do check the "up to the minute NEWS" link at the top
of ?data.table, or subscribe to datatable-commits to keep up to date
with unstable.

There are 9 new features, and 7 bug fixes in 1.8.0. Latest new feature
being :

o   setkey() no longer sorts factor levels. This should be more
convenient and compatible with ordered factors where the levels are
'labels', in some order other than alphabetical. The established advice
to paste each level with an ordinal prefix, or use another table to hold
the factor labels instead of a factor column, is no longer needed.
Solves FR#1420. Thanks to Damian Betebenner and Allan Engelhardt raising
on datatable-help.


Matthew