[Rd] dimnames incoherence?
Martin Maechler
m@ech|er @end|ng |rom @t@t@m@th@ethz@ch
Sat Feb 22 20:20:49 CET 2020
>>>>> William Dunlap
>>>>> on Fri, 21 Feb 2020 14:05:49 -0800 writes:
> If we change the behavior NULL--[[--assignment from
> `[[<-`(NULL, 1, "a" ) # gives "a" (*not* a list)
> to
> `[[<-`(NULL, 1, "a" ) # gives list("a")
> then we have more consistency there *and* your bug is fixed too.
> Of course, in other situations back-compatibility would be
> broken as well.
> Would that change the result of
> L <- list(One=1) ; L$Two[[1]] <- 2
> from the current list(One=1,Two=2) to list(One=1, Two=list(2))
> and the result of
> F <- 1L ; levels(F)[[1]] <- "one"
> from structure(1L, levels="one") to structure(1L, levels=list("one"))?
Yes (twice).
This is indeed what happens in current R-devel, as I had
committed the proposition above yesterday.
So R-devel (with svn rev >= 77844 ) does this :
> L <- list(One=1) ; L$Two[[1]] <- 2 ; dput(L)
list(One = 1, Two = list(2))
> F <- 1L ; levels(F)[[1]] <- "one" ; dput(F)
structure(1L, .Label = list("one"))
>
but I find that still considerably more logical than current
(pre R-devel) R's
> L <- list(One=1) ; L$Two[[1]] <- 2 ; dput(L)
list(One = 1, Two = 2)
> L <- list(One=1) ; L$Two[[1]] <- 2:3 ; dput(L)
list(One = 1, Two = list(2:3))
>
> F <- 1L ; levels(F)[[1]] <- "one" ; dput(F)
structure(1L, .Label = "one")
> F <- 1L ; levels(F)[[1]] <- c("one", "TWO") ; dput(F)
structure(1L, .Label = list(c("one", "TWO")))
>
> This change would make L$Name[[1]] <- value act like L$Name$one <- value
> in cases when L did not have a component named "Name" and value
> had length 1.
(I don't entirely get what you mean, but)
indeed,
the [[<- assignments will be closer to corresponding $<- assignments...
which I thought would be another good thing about the change.
> I have seen users use [[<- where [<- is more appropriate in cases like
> this. Should there be a way to generate warnings about the change in
> behavior as you've done with other syntax changes?
Well, good question.
I'd guess one would get such warnings "all over the place", and
if a warning is given only once per session it may not be
effective ... also the warning be confusing to the 99.9% of R users who
don't even get what we are talking about here ;-)
Thank you for your comments.. I did not get too many.
Martin
> Bill Dunlap
> TIBCO Software
> wdunlap tibco.com
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 12:59 PM Martin Maechler <maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch>
> wrote:
>> >>>>> Martin Maechler
>> >>>>> on Wed, 19 Feb 2020 18:06:57 +0100 writes:
>>
>> >>>>> Serguei Sokol
>> >>>>> on Wed, 19 Feb 2020 15:21:21 +0100 writes:
>>
>> >> Hi,
>> >> I was bitten by a little incoherence in dimnames assignment or may
>> be I
>> >> missed some point.
>> >> Here is the case. If I assign row names via dimnames(a)[[1]], when
>> >> nrow(a)=1 then an error is thrown. But if I do the same when
>> nrow(a) > 1
>> >> it's OK. Is one of this case works unexpectedly? Both? Neither?
>>
>> >> a=as.matrix(1)
>> >> dimnames(a)[[1]]="a" # error: 'dimnames' must be a list
>>
>> >> aa=as.matrix(1:2)
>> >> dimnames(aa)[[1]]=c("a", "b") # OK
>>
>> >> In the second case, dimnames(aa) is not a list (like in the first
>> case)
>> >> but it works.
>> >> I would expect that the both work or neither.
>>
>> > I agree (even though I'm strongly advising people to use '<-'
>> > instead of '=');
>> > which in this case helps you get the name of the function really
>> > involved: It is `dimnames<-` (which is implemented in C
>> > entirely, for matrices and other arrays).
>>
>> As a matter of fact, I wrote too quickly, the culprit here is
>> the `[[<-` function (rather than `dimnames<-`),
>> which has a special "inconsistency" feature when used to "add to NULL";
>> almost surely inherited from S, but I now think we should
>> consider dropping on the occasion of aiming for R 4.0.0 :
>>
>> It's documented in ?Extract that length 1 `[[.]]`-assignment works
>> specially for NULL (and dimnames(.) are NULL here).
>>
>> Note you need to read and understand one of the tougher sections
>> in the official 'R Language Definition' Manual,
>> section -- 3.4.4 Subset assignment ---
>> i.e.,
>>
>> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-lang.html#Subset-assignment
>>
>> notably this part:
>>
>> Nesting of complex assignments is evaluated recursively
>>
>> names(x)[3] <- "Three"
>>
>> is equivalent to
>>
>> `*tmp*` <- x
>> x <- "names<-"(`*tmp*`, value="[<-"(names(`*tmp*`), 3, value="Three"))
>> rm(`*tmp*`)
>>
>> and then, apply this to our dimnames(a)[[1]] <- "a"
>> and so replace
>>
>> - 'names<-' by 'dimnames<-'
>> - '[<-' by '[[<-'
>>
>> ----------
>>
>> Here is the rest of my analysis as valid R code
>> {this is not new, Peter Dalgaard had explained this 10 or 20
>> years ago to a mailing list audience IIRC} :
>>
>> ## MM: The problematic behavior (bug ?) is in `[[<-`, not in `dimnames<-` :
>>
>> `[[<-`(NULL, 1, "a" ) # gives "a" (*not* a list)
>> `[[<-`(NULL, 1, c("a","b")) # gives list(c("a","b")) !!
>>
>> ##==> in C code: in subassign.c [ ~/R/D/r-devel/R/src/main/subassign.c ]
>> ##==> function (~ 340 lines)
>> ## do_subassign2_dflt(SEXP call, SEXP op, SEXP args, SEXP rho)
>> ## has
>> "
>> line svn r. svn auth. c.o.d.e...
>> ---- ------ --------- ----------------------------------------------
>> 1741 4166 ihaka if (isNull(x)) {
>> 1742 45446 ripley if (isNull(y)) {
>> 1743 76166 luke UNPROTECT(2); /* args, y */
>> 1744 4166 ihaka return x;
>> 1745 45446 ripley }
>> 1746 35680 murdoch if (length(y) == 1)
>> 1747 68094 luke x = allocVector(TYPEOF(y), 0);
>> 1748 24954 ripley else
>> 1749 68094 luke x = allocVector(VECSXP, 0);
>> 1750 1820 ihaka }
>> ---- ------ --------- ----------------------------------------------
>> "
>> ## so clearly, in case the value is of length 1, no list is created .
>>
>> ## For dimnames<- Replacing NULL by list() should be done in both cases
>> , and then things work :
>> `[[<-`(list(), 1, "a" ) # gives list( "a" )
>> `[[<-`(list(), 1, c("a","b")) # gives list(c("a","b")) !!
>>
>> ## but the problem here is that `[[<-` at this time in the game
>> ## does *not* know that it comes from dimnames<- ....
>>
>> ---------------
>>
>> If we change the behavior NULL--[[--assignment from
>>
>> `[[<-`(NULL, 1, "a" ) # gives "a" (*not* a list)
>>
>> to
>>
>> `[[<-`(NULL, 1, "a" ) # gives list("a")
>>
>>
>> then we have more consistency there *and* your bug is fixed too.
>> Of course, in other situations back-compatibility would be
>> broken as well.
>>
>> At the moment, I think we (R Core Team) should consider doing
>> that here.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>> >> Your thoughts are welcome.
>>
>> > I think we'd be happy if you report this formally on R's
>> > bugzilla - https://bugs.r-project.org/ - as a bug.
>>
--> https://www.r-project.org/bugs.html
>>
>> >> From reading bugs.html you note that you should ask for
>> >> an account there;
>> > as I'm one of the people who get such request by e-mail,
>> > in this case, I can do it directly (if you confirm you'd
>> > want in a private e-mail).
>>
>> >> Best, Serguei.
>>
>> >> PS the same apply for dimnames(a)[[2]]<-.
>>
>> > (of course)
>>
>> > NB *and* importantly, the buglet is still in current
>> > versions of R
>>
>> > Best, Martin
>>
>> >>> sessionInfo()
>> >> R version 3.6.1 (2019-07-05) Platform:
>> >> x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit) Running under: Mageia 7
>>
>> >> Matrix products: default BLAS/LAPACK:
>> >> /home/opt/OpenBLAS/lib/libopenblas_sandybridge-r0.3.6.so
>>
>> >> locale: [1] LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C [3]
>> >> LC_TIME=fr_FR.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=fr_FR.UTF-8 [5]
>> >> LC_MONETARY=fr_FR.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=fr_FR.UTF-8 [7]
>> >> LC_PAPER=fr_FR.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C [9]
>> >> LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C [11]
>> >> LC_MEASUREMENT=fr_FR.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>
>> >> attached base packages: [1] parallel stats graphics
>> >> grDevices utils datasets methods [8] base
>>
>> >> other attached packages: [1] multbxxc_1.0.1
>> >> rmumps_5.2.1-11 [3] arrApply_2.1
>> >> RcppArmadillo_0.9.800.4.0 [5] Rcpp_1.0.3
>> >> slam_0.1-47 [7] nnls_1.4
>>
>> >> loaded via a namespace (and not attached): [1]
>> >> compiler_3.6.1 tools_3.6.1 codetools_0.2-16
>>
>> >> ______________________________________________
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>> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>> > ______________________________________________
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>>
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