[Rd] vector(NA, 3) (PR#1541)

[ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk wrote:

> On Sat, 11 May 2002 pgilbert@bank-banque-canada.ca wrote:
>
> > I don't seem to be able to initialize a vector of NAs. I hope this is a
> > bug and not a new feature (I realize I have not paid much attention to a
> > lot of recent discussion about NA):
>
> It's an incorrect use!
>
> From the help page:
>
>     mode: A character string giving an atomic mode, or `"any"'.
>
> I think you meant rep(NA, 3).

To amplify that, rep(NA, 3) gives a vector of *logical* NAs, just as
matrix(NA, 2, 2) gives a logical matrix.   There are five different
missing values in R, and `NA' happens to be mapped to the logical one
(unless coerced, implicitly or explicitly).

People normally want numerical missing values, for which use
rep(as.numeric(NA), 3).  Replace `numeric' by `integer', `complex' or
`character' for the other possibilities.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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