[Rd] argument order for Math2 group functions in R 2.6.x (PR#10683)

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008, John Fox wrote:

> Dear Brian,
>
> Are there many primitives that take more than one argument?

Quite a few: see the list in the 'R Internals' manual.  But most involve 
'...' .

> I see, for example, that round() is another. Might it not be a good idea 
> to provide a warning in the help file(s) that arguments must be supplied 
> in the correct order?

You mean as in

      All except 'zapsmall' are primitive, so positional argument
      matching is used for the default methods of 'round' and 'signif'.

in 2.6.2 RC?

Brian


>
> Regards,
> John
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: r-devel-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-devel-bounces at r-
>> project.org] On Behalf Of ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
>> Sent: February-02-08 12:45 PM
>> To: r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch
>> Cc: R-bugs at biostat.ku.dk
>> Subject: Re: [Rd] argument order for Math2 group functions in R 2.6.x
>> (PR#10683)
>>
>> signif() is primitive in 2.6.x, and so uses positional matching (almost
>> all primitives do).
>>
>> See the NEWS file for the announcement of the change.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, ben.hansen at umich.edu wrote:
>>
>>> Full_Name: Ben Hansen
>>> Version: 2.6.1
>>> OS: Windows
>>> Submission from: (NULL) (66.93.3.101)
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> In R 2.6.0 or 2.6.1 on Windows, I get the following upon opening the
>> GUI (no
>>> previous commands or special settings):
>>>> signif(digits=4, x=1/3)
>>> [1] 4
>>>
>>> It seems to be taking 4 to be the "x" argument, the number to be
>> rounded.
>>> However, my understanding (perhaps mistaken) was that it should
>> respond as
>>> follows:
>>>> signif(digits=4, x=1/3)
>>> [1] 0.3333
>>>
>>> (This last is what I get from R 2.5.0 running on the same machine,
>> and what I'm
>>> used to getting using earlier versions.)  Similar things happen with
>> round().
>>>
>>> I haven't yet had the opportunity to investigate whether I'd see the
>> same
>>> behavior on other platforms.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Ben
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at 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 272866 (PA)
>> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at 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 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595