

   AAbbbbrreevviiaattee SSttrriinnggss

        abbreviate(names.arg, minlength = 4, use.classes = TRUE,
                   dot = FALSE)

   AArrgguummeennttss::

   names.arg: a vector of names to be abbreviated.

   minlength: the minimum length of the abbreviations.

   use.classes: logical (currently ignored by R).

        dot: logical; should a dot (`"."') be appended?

   DDeessccrriippttiioonn::

        Abbreviate Strings to at least `minlength' characters,
        such that they remain unique (if they were).

   DDeettaaiillss::

        The algorithm used is similar to that of S.  First
        spaces at the beginning of the word are stripped.  Then
        any other spaces are stripped.  Next lower case vowels
        are removed followed by lower case consonants.  Finally
        if the abbreviation is still longer than `minlength'
        upper case letters are stripped.

        Letters are always stripped from the end of the word
        first.  If an element of `names.arg' contains more than
        one word (words are separated by space) then at least
        one letter from each word will be retained.  If a sin-
        gle string is passed it is abbreviated in the same man-
        ner as a vector of strings.

        If `use.classes' is `FALSE' then the only distinction
        is to be between letters and space.  This has NOT been
        implemented.

   VVaalluuee::

        A character vector containing abbreviations for the
        strings in its first argument.  Duplicates in the orig-
        inal `names.arg' will be given identical abbreviations.
        If any non-duplicated elements have the same `min-
        length' abbreviations then `minlength' is incremented
        by one and new abbreviations are found for those ele-
        ments only.  This process is repeated until all unique
        elements of `names.arg' have unique abbreviations.

        The character version of `names.arg' is attached to the
        returned value as a names argument.

   SSeeee AAllssoo::

        `substr'.

   EExxaammpplleess::

        x <- c("abcd", "efgh", "abce")
        abbreviate(x, 2)

        data(state)
        (st.abb <- abbreviate(state.name, 2))
        table(nchar(st.abb))# out of 50, 3 need 4 letters

        x <- c("abcd", "efgh", "abce")
        abbreviate(x, 2)

        data(state)
        (st.abb <- abbreviate(state.name, 2))
        table(nchar(st.abb))# out of 50, 3 need 4 letters

