[Rd] "if" function in pure R?

[Alexandre Courtiol]

Thanks a lot Jiefei,

I had thought of defining a binary operator (inspired by pipes) or simply
using an additional condition in the if() calls [e.g. if(foo & fn(bar))
doSomeThing; with fn(bar) returning a logical], but both are workaround
that I do not find as elegant as a proper control-flow construct.

Thus two questions remain:
- is it possible to create a control-flow construct in pure R?
- if yes, how?

Anyone with more insights?
Thanks

On Mon, 27 May 2019 at 04:27, King Jiefei <szwjf08 using gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Alexandre,
>
> I'm not an R expert so this is only my personal thought:
>
> I don't think you can achieve what you want exactly. A possible solution
> would be defining a binary operator %*%, where you can replace the asterisk
> with any function name you want. The function %*% is special since it has
> two arguments, left operand and right operand respectively. You then
> can call the `substitute` function to get its function arguments in an
> expression format and proceed to do what you want. Here is an example to
> show the idea.
>
> *Code:*
>
> `%myOperator%` <- function(x, y) {
>   x = substitute(x)
>   y = substitute(y)
>   return(list(x, y))
> }
>
>
> myIf(i == 1, arg1) %myOperator% {
>   doSomeThing
> }
>
>
> *Results:*
>
> [[1]]
> myIf(i == 1, arg1)
>
> [[2]]
> {
>     doSomeThing
> }
>
> I hope that helps.
>
> Best,
> Jiefei
>
> On Sun, May 26, 2019 at 4:45 AM Alexandre Courtiol <
> alexandre.courtiol using gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Could anyone refer to me to a good source to learn how to program a simple
>> control-flow construct* in R, or provide me with a simple example?
>>
>> Control-flow constructs are programmed as primitives, but I would like to
>> be able to do that (if possible) in pure R.
>>
>> The general context is that those functions are a mystery to me. The
>> motivating example is that I would like to create a function that behave
>> similarly to base::`if` with an extra argument to the function (e.g. to
>> include an error rate on the condition).
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Alex
>>
>> * control-flow constructs are functions such as if, for, while... that
>> allow for call of the form fn(x) expr to work (see ?Control).
>>
>> --
>> Alexandre Courtiol
>>
>> http://sites.google.com/site/alexandrecourtiol/home
>>
>> *"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts"*, R. Feynman
>>
>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>

-- 
Alexandre Courtiol

http://sites.google.com/site/alexandrecourtiol/home

*"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts"*, R. Feynman

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]