[Rd] Is this a bug in `[`?

[Rui Barradas]

Hello,

Thanks for the pointer.
Inline.

On 29/08/2018 04:17, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
> FYI, this behavior is documented in Section 3.4.1 'Indexing by
> vectors' of 'R Language Definition' (accessible for instance via
> help.start()):
> 
> "*Integer* [...] A special case is the zero index, which has null
> effects: x[0] is an empty vector and otherwise including zeros among
> positive or negative indices has the same effect as if they were
> omitted."
> 

So I was in part right, the zero index is handled as a special case.
My use case was an operation in a function. I wasn't testing whether the 
result was of length zero, I was just using seq_len(result) to avoid the 
test. And found the error surprising.

Thanks again,

Rui Barradas


> The rest of that section is very useful and well written. I used it as
> the go-to reference to implement support for all those indexing
> alternatives in matrixStats.
> 
> /Henrik
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 3:42 AM Iñaki Úcar <i.ucar86 using gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> El dom., 5 ago. 2018 a las 6:27, Kenny Bell (<kmbell56 using gmail.com>) escribió:
>>>
>>> This should more clearly illustrate the issue:
>>>
>>> c(1, 2, 3, 4)[-seq_len(4)]
>>> #> numeric(0)
>>> c(1, 2, 3, 4)[-seq_len(3)]
>>> #> [1] 4
>>> c(1, 2, 3, 4)[-seq_len(2)]
>>> #> [1] 3 4
>>> c(1, 2, 3, 4)[-seq_len(1)]
>>> #> [1] 2 3 4
>>> c(1, 2, 3, 4)[-seq_len(0)]
>>> #> numeric(0)
>>> Created on 2018-08-05 by the reprex package (v0.2.0.9000).
>>
>> IMO, the problem is that you are reading it sequentially: "-" remove
>> "seq_" a sequence "len(0)" of length zero. But that's not how R works
>> (how programming languages work in general). Instead, the sequence is
>> evaluated in the first place, and then the sign may apply as long as
>> you provided something that can hold a sign. And an empty element has
>> no sign, so the sign is lost.
>>
>> Iñaki
>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 3:58 AM Rui Barradas <ruipbarradas using sapo.pt> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Às 15:51 de 04/08/2018, Iñaki Úcar escreveu:
>>>>> El sáb., 4 ago. 2018 a las 15:32, Rui Barradas
>>>>> (<ruipbarradas using sapo.pt>) escribió:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe I am not understanding how negative indexing works but
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) This is right.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (1:10)[-1]
>>>>>> #[1]  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2) Are these right? They are at least surprising to me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (1:10)[-0]
>>>>>> #integer(0)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (1:10)[-seq_len(0)]
>>>>>> #integer(0)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It was the last example that made me ask, seq_len(0) whould avoid an
>>>>>> if/else or something similar.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think it's ok, because there is no negative zero integer, so -0 is 0.
>>>>
>>>> Ok, this makes sense, I should have thought about that.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 1.0/-0L # Inf
>>>>> 1.0/-0.0 # - Inf
>>>>>
>>>>> And the same can be said for integer(0), which is the result of
>>>>> seq_len(0): there is no negative empty integer.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not completely convinced about this one, though.
>>>> I would expect -seq_len(n) to remove the first n elements from the
>>>> vector, therefore, when n == 0, it would remove none.
>>>>
>>>> And integer(0) is not the same as 0.
>>>>
>>>> (1:10)[-0] == (1:10)[0] == integer(0) # empty
>>>>
>>>> (1:10)[-seq_len(0)] == (1:10)[-integer(0)]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And I have just reminded myself to run
>>>>
>>>> identical(-integer(0), integer(0))
>>>>
>>>> It returns TRUE so my intuition is wrong, R is right.
>>>> End of story.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the help,
>>>>
>>>> Rui Barradas
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Iñaki
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Rui Barradas
>>>>>>
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