ratetable.
class attribute, but the
structure of the object.
is.ratetable(x, verbose=F)
TRUE and the object is not a ratetable,
then return a character string describing the way(s) in which
x
fails to be a proper ratetable object.
TRUE if
x is a ratetable, and
FALSE or a description if it is not.
Rate tables are used by the
pyears and
survexp functions, and normally
contain death rates for some population, categorized by age, sex, or other
variables. They have a fairly rigid structure, and the
verbose option
can help in creating a new rate table.