[Rd] Wish: more explicit error message with missing argument in c
Patrick Burns
pburns at pburns.seanet.com
Sat Nov 14 13:02:27 CET 2009
Consider:
> c(,2)
Error: argument is missing, with no default
That there is no traceback is unfortunate
but understandable. If such a mistake were
made like this, there wouldn't be much problem.
But the mistake is likely to be made in more
complicated settings:
> rbind(c(,2), c(3,4))
Error in rbind(c(, 2), c(3, 4)) : argument is missing, with no default
> traceback()
1: rbind(c(, 2), c(3, 4))
So naive (and not-so-naive) users will be led
to think the problem is with 'rbind' and not with
'c'.
If the message could be:
Error: argument to 'c' is missing, with no default
Then that would be satisfactory, I think.
Patrick Burns
patrick at burns-stat.com
+44 (0)20 8525 0696
http://www.burns-stat.com
(home of "The R Inferno" and "A Guide for the Unwilling S User")
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