diff --git a/R-package/R/xgb.cv.R b/R-package/R/xgb.cv.R
index ed088df52..18c8cb716 100644
--- a/R-package/R/xgb.cv.R
+++ b/R-package/R/xgb.cv.R
@@ -114,10 +114,11 @@ xgb.cv <- function(params=list(), data, nrounds, nfold, label = NULL, missing =
   
   colnames <- str_split(string = history[1], pattern = "\t")[[1]] %>% .[2:length(.)] %>% str_extract(".*:") %>% str_replace(":","") %>% str_replace("-", ".")
   colnamesMean <- paste(colnames, "mean")
-  colnamesStd <- paste(colnames, "std")
+  if(showsd) colnamesStd <- paste(colnames, "std")
   
   colnames <- c()
-  for(i in 1:length(colnamesMean)) colnames <- c(colnames, colnamesMean[i], colnamesStd[i])
+  if(showsd) for(i in 1:length(colnamesMean)) colnames <- c(colnames, colnamesMean[i], colnamesStd[i])
+  else colnames <- colnamesMean
   
   type <- rep(x = "numeric", times = length(colnames))
   dt <- read.table(text = "", colClasses = type, col.names = colnames) %>% as.data.table
diff --git a/R-package/demo/cross_validation.R b/R-package/demo/cross_validation.R
index 47a0adea0..ed78f93ed 100644
--- a/R-package/demo/cross_validation.R
+++ b/R-package/demo/cross_validation.R
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ cat('running cross validation, disable standard deviation display\n')
 # [iteration]  metric_name:mean_value+std_value
 # std_value is standard deviation of the metric
 xgb.cv(param, dtrain, nround, nfold=5,
-       metrics={'error'}, , showsd = FALSE)
+       metrics={'error'}, showsd = FALSE)
 
 ###
 # you can also do cross validation with cutomized loss function