R-alpha: print 'problems': print(2^30, digits=12); comments at start of function()

[Martin Maechler]

Both of these bugs are not a real harm,
however, they have been annoying me for too long ... ;-)

1)
 print(2^30, digits = 12) #-  exponential form; unnecessarily!

 formatC(2^30, digits = 12) #- shows you what you'd want above

 ## S-plus is okay here; note that the problem also affects
 ##	paste(.)  & format(.) :
 
 options(digits=10)
 paste(2^(4*1:8))
 
 S-plus gives

[1] "16"         "256"        "4096"       "65536"      "1048576"   
[6] "16777216"   "268435456"  "4294967296"

 whereas R gives

[1] "16"              "256"             "4096"            "65536"          
[5] "1048576"         "1.6777216e+07"   "2.68435456e+08"  "4.294967296e+09"



2) This one has been reported (in slightly different form)
   >> Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:46:37 +0100 (MET)
   >> From: Martyn Plummer <plummer@iarc.fr>
   >> To: r-testers@stat.math.ethz.ch

   >> #4) If you put a few lines of comments at the start of a function,
   >>     then the comments always appear *after* the first line of code. 

This is REALLY painful; try, e.g.,

fcat <- function(..., f.dig= 4, f.wid = f.dig +5, f.flag = ' ', nl = TRUE,
                 file = "", sep = " ",
                 fill = FALSE, labels = NULL, append = FALSE)
{
  ## Purpose: Formatted CAT -- for printing 'tables'
  ## ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  ## Author: Martin Maechler, Date: 12 May 97
  l <- unlist(lapply(list(...), formatC,
                     wid= f.wid, digits= f.dig, flag= f.flag))
  cat(l, if(nl)"\n", file=file, sep=sep, fill=fill,labels=labels, append=append)
}

# and look how it prints:
fcat

Even worse, some comments are silently lost (yes, I know in some
sitatuations,  S also loses comments) : 

ex <- 
##
## S version 4 likes comments like these.  
## ----------- They automagically become  on-line help.
## R just swallows them up into /dev/null...
##
function(a,b)
{
	a + b
}
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