[Rd] A problem with glm() and possibly model-using functions in general?

[Byron Ellis]

On Nov 18, 2005, at 4:35 PM, Thomas Lumley wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Byron Ellis wrote:
>
>> So, consider the following:
>>
>>> example(glm)
>>> g = function(model) { w = runif(9);glm(model,weights=w); }
>>> g(counts ~ outcome + treatment)
>> Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : object "w" not found
>>
>> Huh?! I suspect that somebody is lazily evaluating arguments in the
>> wrong environment (probably GlobalEnv in this case). I'm willing to
>> accept the fact that there's some mysterious reason you'd actually
>> want this behavior, but this looks like it should be filed as a bug
>> to me.
>
> Yes, there is a reason you'd actually want this behaviour, and
> it is documented. In help(model.frame) it says
>
>       All the variables in 'formula', 'subset' and in '...' are looked
>       for first in 'data' and then in the environment of  
> 'formula' (see
>       the help for 'formula()' for further details) and collected  
> into a
>       data frame.
>
> In your example the environment of 'formula' is the global  
> environment,
> since that's where it was created.
>
> There isn't a set of scoping rules for formulas that will make  
> everyone
> happy, but this lexical scope is what R has done for quite some time.
>
>  	-thomas
>

Hrmm, well at least I know why it does what it does. I can't claim to  
like it, but I suspect thats a religious debate that won't be  
particularly useful.

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---
Byron Ellis (ellis at stat.harvard.edu)
"Oook" -- The Librarian