[Rd] Patch proposal for R style consistency (concerning deparse.c)

[Hervé Pagès]

On 05/02/2013 05:26 AM, Terry Therneau wrote:
> I'll be the "anybody" to argue that
>       }  else {
> is an ugly kludge which you will never find in my source code.  Yes,
> it's necessary at the command line because the parser needs help in
> guessing when an expression is finished, but is only needed in that
> case.

No, it's also needed wherever the if statement is at the top-level
(i.e. not nested within { ... }), in a package:

   hpages at thinkpad:~$ R CMD INSTALL SomePackage
   * installing to library 
‘/home/hpages/R/R-3.0.0--disable-byte-compiled-packages/library’
   * installing *source* package ‘SomePackage’ ...
   ** R
   Error in parse(outFile) :
 
/home/hpages/svn/bioconductor/Rpacks/SomePackage/R/assignReads.R:8:1: 
unexpected 'else'
   7: }
   8: else
     ^
   ERROR: unable to collate and parse R files for package ‘SomePackage’
   * removing 
‘/home/hpages/R/R-3.0.0--disable-byte-compiled-packages/library/SomePackage’

or in a stand-alone script:

   > source("somescript.R")
   Error in source("somescript.R") : somescript.R:4:1: unexpected 'else'
   3: }
   4: else
   ^

It's invalid code. Period.

H.


> Since I can hardly imagine using else at the command line (that
> many correct characters in a row exceeds my typing skill) it's not an
> issue for me. I most certainly would not inflict this construction on my
> pupils when teaching a class, nor that any break of a long line has to
> be after "+" but not before, nor other crutches for the parser's sake.
> Let them know about the special case of course, but don't sacrifice good
> coding style the deficiency.
>
> That said, I am completely ambivalent to the result of deparse.  Just
> throwing up an objection to the "purity" argument: things were beginning
> to sound a bit too bombastic :-).
>
> Terry T.
>
> On 05/02/2013 05:00 AM, r-devel-request at r-project.org wrote:
>>   I want "} else {".  Yihue wants "} else {".  And I have not heard
>> anybody
>> say they prefer the other way, unless you interpret Duncan's comment
>> "that's nonsense" as a blanket defense of the status quo. But I don't
>> think
>> he meant that.  This is a matter of style consistency and avoidance of
>> new
>> R-user confusion and error.
>
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> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

-- 
Hervé Pagès

Program in Computational Biology
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