[Rd] Defining environments within functions

[Giles Hooker]

Thanks,

I think I over-emphasized the secondary function, but I can generate the 
scoping problem as follows. First, at the command line, I can get a 
function to access objects that were not in its arguments by

ProfileEnv = new.env()
hello.world = "Hello World"
assign('hello.world',hello.world,3,envir=ProfileEnv)

fn1 = function()
{
	hw = get('hello.world',envir=ProfileEnv)
	print(hw)
}

and then call

 > fn1()
[1] "Hello World"


Now I want to define a wrapper function

fn2 = function()
{
	ProfileEnv = new.env()
	hello.world = "Hello World"
	assign('hello.world',hello.world,3,envir=ProfileEnv)

	fn1()
}

and if I try

 > rm(ProfileEnv)                          # Just to be safe
 > rm(hello.world)
 > fn2()
Error in get("hello.world", envir = ProfileEnv) :
   object "ProfileEnv" not found

In my actual code, fn1() is really a call to

optim(pars,ProfileErr,....)

and hello.world are quantities that were calculated the last time that 
ProfileErr was called and that I want to keep track of.

As an alternative simple example, how would I keep a counter for the 
number of times that optim (or any other generic optimizer) has called 
ProfileErr?

giles

>> How can I define environments within a function so that they are visible
>> to calls to a sub-function?
>>   
> 
> I think you need to give a simplified, runnable example.  (Or at least 
> runnable until it hits the scoping problem you've got.)  "Sub-function" 
> isn't R terminology, and it's not clear what you mean by it.

-- 
Giles Hooker
Assistant Professor:

Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology
Department of Statistical Science
1186 Comstock Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY, 14853

Ph:  (+1 607) 255 1638
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Email:  giles.hooker at cornell.edu