R-alpha: ==NULL
Martin Maechler
Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>
Fri, 2 May 97 11:28:11 +0200
>>>>> "ThLu" == Thomas Lumley <thomas@biostat.washington.edu> writes:
ThLu> On Thu, 1 May 1997, Martin Maechler wrote:
>> >>>>> "Tom" == Thomas Lumley <thomas@biostat.washington.edu> writes:
ThLu> ^^^^^ Aaargh! Not "Tom", please.
Excuse me!
>> ....
>> Is n't logical(0) more logical than NA ?
ThLu> I didn't (previously) make any comment on this -- I only said
ThLu> that NA was more logical than an error message. However, the
ThLu> advantage of returning NA is that NA | TRUE is TRUE, NA & FALSE
ThLu> is FALSE, which doesn't happen with logical(0). Also, from a
ThLu> compatibility point of view one of them is tested with is.na(),
ThLu> the other with length(), so it can matter which one you use. Of
ThLu> course no-one should deliberately write code where it matters,
ThLu> but these things happen.
Ok, given the above argument, returning NA is logical, too.
However, I'd also argue that
logical(0) | TRUE -> TRUE
logical(0) & FALSE -> FALSE
logical(0) & TRUE -> logical(0)
logical(0) | FALSE -> logical(0)
ThLu> It seems in fact that logical(0) | TRUE causes R to freeze
ThLu> (R0.49, sparc solaris).
Yes:
> logical(0) | TRUE
Warning in logical(0) | TRUE : longer object length
is not a multiple of shorter object length
Floating exception
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [and 'core' dump]
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