[Rd] justify hard coded in format.ftable

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> SOEIRO Thomas 
>>>>>     on Wed, 13 May 2020 20:27:15 +0000 writes:

    > Dear all,
    > I haven't received any feedback so far on my proposal to make "justify" argument available in stats:::format.ftable

    > Is this list the appropriate place for this kind of proposal?

Yes, it is.. Actually such a post is even a "role model" post
for R-devel.

    > I hope this follow-up to my message won't be taken as rude. Of course it's not meant to be, but I'm not used to the R mailing lists...

well, there could be said much, and many stories told here ... ;-)

    > Thank you in advance for your comments,

    > Best,
    > Thomas

The main reasons for "no reaction" (for such nice post) probably
are combination of the following

- we are busy
- if we have time, we think other things are more exciting
- we have not used ftable much/at all and are not interested.

Even though the first 2 apply to me, I'll have a 2nd look into
your post now, and may end up well agreeing with your proposal.

Martin Maechler
ETH Zurich  and  R Core team




    >> Dear all,
    >> 
    >> justify argument is hard coded in format.ftable:
    >> 
    >> cbind(apply(LABS, 2L, format, justify = "left"),
    >> apply(DATA, 2L, format, justify = "right"))
    >> 
    >> It would be useful to have the possibility to modify the argument between c("left", "right", "centre", "none") as in format.default.
    >> 
    >> The lines could be changed to:
    >> 
    >> if(length(justify) != 2)
    >> stop("justify must be length 2")
    >> cbind(apply(LABS, 2L, format, justify = justify[1]),
    >> apply(DATA, 2L, format, justify = justify[2]))
    >> 
    >> The argument justify could defaults to c("left", "right") for backward compatibility.
    >> 
    >> It could then allow:
    >> ftab <- ftable(wool + tension ~ breaks, warpbreaks)
    >> format.ftable(ftab, justify = c("none", "none"))
    >> 
    >> Best regards,
    >> 
    >> Thomas