[Rd] Negative integer subscripts in [[?

[William Dunlap]

Should negative subscripts be outlawed in
   x[[subscript]]
?  

Currently, if subscript is a scalar then it can only
be negative if length(x)==1 (otherwise [[ throws an
error).  If length(subscript)>1 then it gets treated
as an attempt to recursively extract an element of
a nested list.

> list(10,20)[[-1]] # get the last element out of 2
[1] 20
> list(10,20,30)[[-(1:2)]] # get the last of 3?  No.
Error in list(10, 20, 30)[[-(1:2)]] :
  attempt to select more than one element
> list(10,list(20,30))[[-c(1:2)]] # see how recursive subscripting is
done
[1] 20

If negative subscripts were not allowed in [[ then 
there might be a little less confusion about [[.

(If recursive subscripting were done by a list instead
of by an integer or character vector there might be
less confusion and it would be more flexible.)


Bill Dunlap
Spotfire, TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com